Illegal invasion of Afghanistan leads to bumper opium harvest

"Britain faces a war on two fronts in Afghanistan, following the revelation that the province where British troops are deployed has become the biggest source of illicit drugs in the world.

"In an annual survey of opium production released yesterday, the UN reported that Helmand province had produced 48 per cent more opium compared to its record-breaking crop last year. Opium production in Afghanistan as a whole will reach a 'frighteningly new level' at 8,200 tons, 34 per cent higher than last year, the report said.

"British troops sent to back up reconstruction efforts in Helmand have been pinned down by resurgent Taliban fighters, who have a stranglehold over the drugs trade which is funding the resistance.

"Although another record opium crop had been expected, the massive jump in the Helmand output reflects the level of insecurity in the province, where the insurgency has deepened in the past year. British commanders have described the conflict as the most intense since the Korean war ..."
The Independent

Categories: afghanistan, drugs, war+on+terror

Cheney urging strikes on Iran

WASHINGTON - "President Bush charged Thursday that Iran continues to arm and train insurgents who are killing U.S. soldiers in Iraq, and he threatened action if that continues.

"At a news conference Thursday, Bush said Iran had been warned of unspecified consequences if it continued its alleged support for anti-American forces in Iraq. U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker had conveyed the warning in meetings with his Iranian counterpart in Baghdad, the president said.

"Bush wasn’t specific, and a State Department official refused to elaborate on the warning.

"Behind the scenes, however, the president’s top aides have been engaged in an intensive internal debate over how to respond to Iran’s support for Shiite Muslim groups in Iraq and its nuclear program. Vice President Dick Cheney several weeks ago proposed launching airstrikes at suspected training camps in Iraq run by the Quds force, a special unit of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, according to two U.S. officials who are involved in Iran policy.

"The debate has been accompanied by a growing drumbeat of allegations about Iranian meddling in Iraq from U.S. military officers, administration officials and administration allies outside government and in the news media. It isn’t clear whether the media campaign is intended to build support for limited military action against Iran, to pressure the Iranians to curb their support for Shiite groups in Iraq or both.

"Nor is it clear from the evidence the administration has presented whether Iran, which has long-standing ties to several Iraqi Shiite groups, including the Mahdi Army of radical cleric Muqtada al Sadr and the Badr Organization, which is allied with the U.S.-backed government of Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki, is a major cause of the anti-American and sectarian violence in Iraq or merely one of many. At other times, administration officials have blamed the Sunni Muslim group al Qaida in Iraq for much of the violence.

"For now, however, the president appears to have settled on a policy of stepped-up military operations in Iraq aimed at the suspected Iranian networks there, combined with direct American-Iranian talks in Baghdad to try to persuade Tehran to halt its alleged meddling.

"The U.S. military launched one such raid Wednesday in Baghdad’s predominantly Shiite Sadr City district.

"But so far that course has failed to halt what American military officials say is a flow of sophisticated roadside bombs, known as explosively formed penetrators, into Iraq. Last month they accounted for a third of the combat deaths among U.S.-led forces, according to the military.

"Cheney, who’s long been skeptical of diplomacy with Iran, argued for military action if hard new evidence emerges of Iran’s complicity in supporting anti-American forces in Iraq; for example, catching a truckload of fighters or weapons crossing into Iraq from Iran, one official said.

"The two officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to talk publicly about internal government deliberations ..."
Common Dreams

Categories: cheney, usa, iran, military, war

A non-believer - say it isn't so

You can be gay, black or even a woman, but America will not tolerate a president who has no religion. Anne Davies writes.

"Pete Stark found himself in a unique and slightly uncomfortable position earlier this year. The longtime Democrat congressman for the Oakland district near San Francisco had responded to a survey from the Secular Coalition for America which offered a $1000 prize to the person who could identify the 'highest-level atheist, agnostic, humanist or any other kind of 'nontheist' currently holding elected public office in the United States'.

"To his surprise, that was him. Stark was the only one of 535 federal politicians prepared to admit he had no religion. For a few brief weeks he was the poster-boy for the humanists in a nation where, according to Pew Foundation research, eight out of 10 people say they have "no doubt God exists" and that 'prayer is an important part of their daily lives' ...

"Fortunately, at 75, Stark is not planning to seek higher office. If he had been, he had just committed political suicide.

"Being an atheist is the biggest handicap a person could have to being elected US president - worse than being gay or a woman, according to a Gallup poll in February.

"More than 53 per cent of people surveyed said they would not vote for an atheist ..."
Sydney Morning Herald

Categories: religion, christianity, usa

Group's estimate of Iraqi deaths to cross one million

"For the past month, the non-profit group JustForeignPolicy.org has provided an ongoing estimate of the number of violent Iraqi deaths attributable to the 2003 invasion. Sometime within the next week, their tally is expected to cross one million Iraqi deaths. (The group will issue a press release when this occurs.)

"JustForeignPolicy.org's estimate is a rough update of a scientific study conducted by researchers at Johns Hopkins University last year, which concluded that 601,000 violent Iraqi deaths were attributable to the invasion as of July 2006. That study, published in The Lancet, relied on a cross-sectional cluster survey, the method used to estimate deaths around the world following natural and manmade disasters. For example, the standard press estimate of 200,000 deaths in Darfur comes from cluster samples conducted by the United Nations and a researcher at Northwestern University.

"In the absence of a follow-up cluster survey, this careful extrapolation represents a best estimate of the growing Iraqi death toll ..."
Source

Categories: iraq, war+on+terror, war