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1.: War In Afghanistan Evokes Second World War Parallels

Posted by: "Rick Rozoff" rwrozoff@yahoo.com rwrozoff

Tue Apr 6, 2010 8:09 pm (PDT)

http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2010/04/07/war-in-afghanistan-evokes-second-world-war-parallels

Stop NATO
April 6, 2010

War In Afghanistan Evokes Second World War Parallels
Rick Rozoff

With the Pentagon and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization planning the largest military campaign of the Afghan war this summer in the south, Kandahar province, a complementary offensive in the north, Kunduz province, and increased troop strength of 150,000 in preparation for the assaults, a war that will enter its tenth calendar year this October 7 is reaching the apex of its intensity.

The length of the war if not the amount of troops deployed for it inevitably conjures up a comparison with the U.S. war in Vietnam, before now the longest in America's history. Not only protracted but intractable, with its escalation in earnest beginning in early 1965 and the end of U.S. combat operations not occurring until 1973.

Another analogy is with the Korean War, far shorter in duration - three years - and with fewer U.S. troops and deaths than in Vietnam.

In at least two manners the Korean War more closely resembles the current armed conflict in South Asia. First, foreign intervention was formally authorized by the United Nations although in effect it was a U.S.-led and -dominated military operation on the Asian mainland.

Second, Washington then, as now, recruited troops from allied nations, particularly from members of post-World War II military blocs it had formed or was in the process of establishing. In addition to South Korea, soldiers from fifteen other countries fought under U.S. (and nominal UN) command.

From NATO, formed the year before the Korean War began in 1950: Britain, Canada, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg and then candidate members Greece and Turkey.

From the Australia, New Zealand, United States Security Treaty (ANZUS), formed during the Korean War in September of 1951: All three members.

From what in 1955 would be formalized as the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO), envisioned at the time as an Asian parallel to NATO: The Philippines, Thailand, Australia and New Zealand, along with the U.S., Britain and France which were also founding members.

Washington additionally dragooned between 1,800-3,000 troops each from Colombia, Ethiopia and apartheid South Africa for the war effort.

SEATO was dissolved in 1977 and ANZUS remains an active alliance, although for the expanding war in Afghanistan (and neighboring Pakistan) all foreign troops, including in the near future "virtually all American forces," [1] are or will be under NATO command, including the first contingent of troops from Colombia. Australia and New Zealand, with 1,550 and 200 troops respectively, are now identified as NATO Contact Countries.

To return to the Vietnam precedent, on July 2, 2009 the U.S. launched its largest military offensive anywhere since the second attack on Fallujah in Iraq in 2004, Operation Phantom Fury, which included a total of 10,000-15,000 American troops.

In Operation Khanjar (Strike of the Sword) conducted in Afghanistan's Helmand province, 4,000 U.S. forces and fifty aircraft participated in an assault that included "the biggest offensive airlift by the Marines since Vietnam." [2]

In February 15,000 U.S., NATO and Afghan government troops launched the largest joint military attack of the war against the town of Marjah in Helmand province, with an estimated population of 75,000-80,000 and by one account as few as 400 suspected insurgents. [3] A more than 27-1 ratio of armed belligerents. The insurgents were not only outnumbered but outgunned and didn't have warplanes for air cover and bombing and strafing runs. Western troops were ferried in by helicopters and rockets were fired from a High Mobility Artillery Rocket System, in one case killing ten members of an Afghan family when their house was hit.

Nevertheless a U.S. officer described the fighting being as tough as that in Fallujah six years earlier. "In Fallujah, it was just as intense. But there, we started from the north and worked down to the south. In Marjah, we're coming in from different locations and working toward the centre, so we're taking fire from all angles." [4]

The offensive was initiated on February 13th and six weeks later it was reported that U.S. and NATO troops were "still coming under fire and being targeted by bomb attacks despite efforts to restore Afghan government control." [5]

The Russian ambassador to NATO, Dmitry Rogozin, "said he was puzzled by allied claims that the offensive was a success," according to the Associated Press, which moreover attributed a further statement of Rogozin's - "So the result (of the Marjah offensive) was that the mountain shook, but only a mouse was born" - to a "Russian proverb." [6]

What the Russian envoy no doubt knew if the U.S. news agency's writer and editors didn't was that Rogozin's line was a quote from the Roman poet Horace: Parturiunt montes; nascetur ridiculus mus. The mountains are in labor; a ridiculous mouse will be born.

While the mountain was writhing with a stillborn victory, U.S. President Barack Obama paid an unannounced one-day visit to the Afghan capital of Kabul to, as far as it can be determined, remind his Afghan counterpart Hamid Karzai who was in charge of the country.

The following day the U.S.'s top military commander, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Michael Mullen, visited Marjah forty days after the offensive was unleashed there and in a news report entitled "Mullen in Afghan war zone as US gears up for Kandahar" it was disclosed that "The United States and allies have boosted their troop numbers to 126,000, with the number set to peak at 150,000 by August as the fight expands into neighbouring Kandahar province, the heartland of the insurgency." [7]

If the U.S. and its NATO allies faced 400-2,000 armed fighters in Marjah (the most common figure cited in the Western press was 600), a town of no more than 80,000 inhabitants, and still confronted snipers and improvised explosive devices a month and a half into the operation, Kandahar presents a challenge several orders of magnitude greater. The province has a population of almost one million with half that number in the capital. It is also, in the copy and paste style of the American establishment news media, routinely referred to as the "heartland of the insurgency" and the "birthplace of Taliban."

The assault on Marjah was intended and presented as a warm-up exercise for the campaign in Kandahar province and city scheduled to begin as early as June, and the public relations blitz before the February attack on Marjah was of a scope customarily reserved for high-budget Hollywood releases and professional sports events. The self-celebratory propaganda in advance of the offensive in Kandahar can be expected to exceed it in bravado and extravagance. To be proportionate to the scale of the fighting. The "battle for Kandahar" is intended to be the decisive victory in what will then be a nearly nine-year war, one that permits Washington and its Western allies to "retreat in dignity" from the Afghan imbroglio.

In preparation for the offensive the U.S. is increasing the transfer of troops and military equipment to the war zone. In early April the Pentagon's Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology, and Logistics Ashton B. Carter affirmed that a "massive amount of equipment and supplies being sent to support troops in Afghanistan is a historic logistical effort," and stated:

"I think it's fair to say that there's never been, like in these months that we're witnessing right now, as dramatic a logistics effort as we see in Afghanistan." [8]

He was further cited as saying "From the ramp up of airlifts, sealifts and ground supply lines, to the building of forward operating bases, runways and tent cities...the effort to build up and supply the plus up of troops in Afghanistan is critical to NATO's success there." [9]

In 2008 NATO established its first multinational Strategic Airlift Capability operation at the Papa Air Base in Hungary, intended for supplying war efforts around the world in future but for the conflict in Afghanistan most immediately. The "first-of-its-kind mobility unit comprising airmen from 12 nations" [10] is staffed by U.S. military personnel, who are also now permanently stationed at bases in Bulgaria and Romania and later this month will be in Poland as well. Late last July the "first-ever multinational strategic airlift unit was officially activated...at a ceremony at Papa Air Base, Hungary, according to a U.S. Air Forces in Europe release." [11]

A Pentagon website disclosed this April 2nd that the Hungarian-based "Heavy Airlift Wing, comprised of 12 nations, recently moved 2.1 million pounds of equipment essential to surge operations supporting the International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan.

"The international wing has been part of the operation to move more than 6 million pounds of basic expeditionary airfield resources, or BEAR materiel, to build six forward operating bases supporting 3,500 people...." [12]

At a press conference at the same time the new commander of the U.S. Third - "Patton's Own" - Army (United States Army Central), Lieutenant General William G. Webster, informed reporters in Kuwait that "The military is scrambling to finish what it calls the largest movement of troops and equipment since the buildup of World War II as it draws down in Iraq and ramps up in Afghanistan."

He added that "the military is moving as fast as it can on the massive and complex job. There are roughly 3 million pieces of equipment in Iraq, including 41,000 vehicles and trailers," and said "officials expect to be able to move the more than 5,000 vehicles needed for the Afghanistan buildup into that country by the end of the summer.

"Besides air deliveries to Afghanistan, the military is moving goods through neighboring Pakistan and is using a system of roads, rail and sea routes through Uzbekistan and other points to the north in Central Asia." [13]

His was not the only recent reference to World War II in regards to the Afghan war. There is no literal comparison between the ongoing fighting in Afghanistan and the most deadly and destructive armed conflict in human history. The Second World War included all the world's major industrial powers as belligerents (Sweden alone possibly excepted), which collectively mobilized up to 100 million troops.

The war cost the lives of as many as 70 million people, soldiers and civilians alike.

In the nuclear age the world would not survive any attempt at a similar conflagration.

But that war is increasingly becoming the frame of reference for the fighting in the Afghanistan-Pakistan theater.

In the April 1st edition of Toronto's Global and Mail Michael O'Hanlon, director of research and senior fellow on foreign policy issues at the Brookings Institution, wrote in an opinion piece called "Kandahar is what the Canada-U.S. alliance is all about" that "Americans need to feel unabashed about asking Canada to stay on in Afghanistan past 2011," as the two nations "are beginning the most important combined wartime operation since the Second World War." [14]

Canada has lost 141 soldiers in Afghanistan, most all of them in Kandahar. That death toll is Canada's highest since the Korean War, which ended 57 years ago. Australia, which has not suffered combat casualties since the wars in Korea and Vietnam, has acknowledged that twenty of its soldiers have been wounded in Afghanistan so far this year.

The carnage against Afghan civilians perpetrated by the U.S. and NATO from the sky and on the ground is steadily mounting (as deaths from U.S. drone missile attacks in adjoining Pakistan near the 800 mark). From Kunduz last autumn and Marjah the last two months to the unconscionable murder of two pregnant women (one a mother of ten, the other of six), a teenage girl and others in the village of Khataba in Paktia province in February, the counterinsurgency strategy of General McChrystal, commander of all U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan, is having its lethal effect.

The war is also costing NATO a rising number of casualties in the military bloc's first ground war. As of April 3rd Western nations had lost 144 soldiers this year. In the first three months of 2010 the NATO-led International Security and Assistance Force (ISAF) acknowledged at least 138 deaths as compared to 78 during the same quarter in 2009, which itself was the deadliest year for U.S. and NATO forces - 520 losses - since the invasion of Afghanistan in 2001. "Military planners have said they expect an escalation of deaths and injuries among foreign troops as deployments surge to a peak of 150,000 by August...." [15]

American combat deaths also "roughly doubled in the first three months of 2010 compared to the same period last year," and "have been accompanied by a dramatic spike in the number of wounded, with injuries more than tripling in the first two months of the year and trending in the same direction based on the latest available data for March."

"U.S. officials have warned that casualties are likely to rise even further as the Pentagon completes its deployment of 30,000 additional troops to Afghanistan and sets its sights on the Taliban's home base of Kandahar province, where a major operation is expected in the coming months." [16]

On April 2nd three German soldiers were killed and five seriously wounded in a firefight with an estimated 200 insurgents in the northern Afghan province of Kunduz. According to Deutsche Presse-Agentur, "It was the highest number of casualties the postwar German armed forces, the Bundeswehr, have suffered in battle and brought to 39 the number of German soldiers killed in Afghanistan." [17] That is, the three soldiers killed represented the most German combat fatalities in a single exchange since the defeat of the Third Reich in 1945. The 39 deaths in total are also the first since the end of World War II.

German NATO troops responded by killing six Afghan government soldiers in the same province on the same day.

In mid-March German General Bruno Kasdorf, chief of staff of the International Security and Assistance Force in the Afghan capital, informed German public radio that "There will definitely be an operation up there in Kunduz (province)," and that the offensive would be "similar" in scale "to the offensive currently underway in the southern province of Helmand involving 15,000 US, NATO and Afghan troops." [18]

Germany currently has approximately 4,300 troops in Afghanistan, the third largest contingent after the U.S. and Britain and the most deployed abroad in the post-World War II period since 8,500 troops were assigned to the NATO force in Kosovo in 1999. [19]

In Afghanistan, as evidenced above, they are in an active war zone for the first time in 65 years. Last September 5th German troops called in NATO air strikes against villages near their base in Kunduz which resulted in the deaths of over 150 Afghan civilians. [20]

German Federal Minister of Economic Cooperation and Development Dirk Niebel, who was in Afghanistan on the day of the deadly fighting that cost the lives of five of his own country's soldiers and six from the government of Afghanistan, the protection of which is the pretext for German military involvement in the nation, in speaking of his nation's combat troops at a ceremony for those killed on April 2nd stated "They want people to understand that they have to defend themselves - sometimes also preventatively. And they don't understand why they have to explain themselves to the German public, or why they could even be prosecuted." [21]

Another report of the same day quoted German Defense Minister Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg asseverating, "We will stay in Afghanistan" although the mission is being conducted under "war-like" circumstances and the situation confronting German troops could be categorized as a war.

"The remarks reflect calls by Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle and some others to reclassify the German mission in Afghanistan as 'armed conflict.' So far, German military forces have been subjected to the civil penal code, given their participation in training Afghan police and soldiers and in reconstruction activities." [22]

Reclassifying Germany's - overt and incontrovertible - combat mission in Afghanistan as war in place of the previous designations of peacekeeping and reconstruction would allow for a relaxation of legal and other constraints on its troops, so-called combat caveats, so that massacres like that in Kunduz last September will be more likely to be repeated and less likely to be prosecuted.

Germany's military role in NATO's first Asian war is of special significance as the May 8th (May 9th in much of Eastern Europe) 65th anniversary of the end of World War II in Europe approaches.

When the leaders of the Big Three allied powers - Britain, the Soviet Union and the U.S. - met in Yalta and Potsdam in 1945 to discuss what a post-war Europe would look like, particular emphasis was placed on building a new legal and security structure that would prevent the possibility of the horrors of the Second World War ever again being inflicted on the continent and the world.

The nation that had ignited the deadliest war in human history - Germany with its invasions of Poland, Denmark, Norway, Belgium, the Netherlands, France, Yugoslavia, Greece and the Soviet Union between 1939 and 1941 - was to be demilitarized. At the time many in the world hoped the model might be extended to all of Europe and even to the rest of the world.

That wish was dashed with the creation of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization in 1949 and the inclusion of the Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany) into the military bloc six years afterward.

Germany itself would violate the post-World War II prohibition against engaging in armed conflicts by supplying Luftwaffe warplanes for NATO's 78-day air war against Yugoslavia in 1999 and then by deploying troops for what has now become a full-fledged combat role in Afghanistan. German forces have been appointed to lead fellow NATO nations' troops in the upcoming large-scale military offensive in Kunduz province.

On May 9th troops from the other Second World War allied powers in the European theater - the U.S., Britain and France - are for the first time to March in the Victory Day parade in the Russian capital.

There are different ways to commemorate the end of the world's bloodiest war.

Britain's Sunday Telegraph ran a feature on April 4th titled "Luftwaffe and RAF join forces in Afghanistan," which celebrated the fact that "Sixty-five years after the end of the Second World War" a "Luftwaffe navigator has flown into combat in the same plane as an RAF pilot for the very first time."

That the British Royal Air Force and its German opposite number would not only forget dogfights over the English channel and bombing raids over the continent in the early 1940s but join ranks in combat missions over an unoffending nation and its people in faraway South Asia seemed a cause for approbation to the major British daily, which detailed that "the [German] navigator climbed into a Tornado GR4 ground attack aircraft at Kandahar airbase in southern Afghanistan to provide air support for troops in Helmand province." The British Tornado GR4 multirole fighter, equipped for Storm Shadow and Brimstone missiles, earlier saw action in Iraq.

In fact the Tornado combat plane jointly flown by a German and a British pilot in Afghanistan "was armed with 500lb Paveway air-to-ground bombs, Brimstone missiles and a 27mm cannon." [23]

On May 8th and 9th when the world remembers the end of a conflict that accounted for the largest-ever loss of human life, two distinct, exclusive and even opposite interpretations will be offered on the events of 65 years ago.

One is that humanity must never allow the use of war to achieve political, territorial and economic objectives or in the name of redressing past grievances, which all too often is reduced to motives of revenge.

The other is that the majority of the world's major military powers must intensify plans for international armed intervention based on global rapid deployment forces able to confront and attack any nation accused of posing a threat outside or inside its borders. "Preventatively."

The West's war in Afghanistan - with an ever-widening network of military bases and transit infrastructure in Eastern Europe, the South Caucasus, the Middle East, and Central and South Asia servicing it - is the era's most egregious example of the second strategy.

1) Associated Press, March 16, 2010
2) Associated Press, July 1, 2009
3) Associated Press, February 14, 2010
4) Christian Science Monitor, February 14, 2010
5) Agence France-Presse, March 31, 2010
6) Associated Press, March 15, 2010
7) Agence France-Presse, March 31, 2010
8) U.S. Department of Defense
American Forces Press Service
April 2, 2010
9) Ibid
10) U.S. Air Forces in Europe, June 2, 2009
11) Stars and Stripes, July 29, 2009
12) United States European Command, April 2, 2010
13) Associated Press, April 2, 2010
14) Globe and Mail, April 1, 2010
15) Daily Jang/The News, March 31, 2010
16) Associated Press, March 28, 2010
17) Deutsche Presse-Agentur, April 2, 2010
18) Agence France-Presse, March 18, 2010
19) New NATO: Germany Returns To World Military Stage
Stop NATO, July 12, 2009
http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2009/08/31/new-nato-germany-returns-to-world-military-stage
20) Pajhwok Afghan News, September 5, 2009
Following Afghan Election, NATO Intensifies Deployments, Carnage
Stop NATO, September 6, 2009
http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2009/09/06/following-afghan-election-nato-intensifies-deployments-carnage
21) Deutsche Welle, April 4, 2010
22) Deutsche Welle, April 4, 2010
23) Sunday Telegraph, April 4, 2010
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2.: Interceptor Missiles "Front And Center" In U.S. Military Policy

Posted by: "Rick Rozoff" rwrozoff@yahoo.com rwrozoff

Tue Apr 6, 2010 8:10 pm (PDT)

http://thecable.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2010/04/06/obama_embraces_missile_defense_in_nuclear_review

Foreign Policy
April 6, 2010

Obama embraces missile defense in nuclear review
Posted By Josh Rogin

-"With the advent of U.S. conventional military preeminence and continued improvements in U.S. missile defenses and capabilities to counter and mitigate the effects of [chemical and biological weapons], the role of U.S. nuclear weapons in deterring non-nuclear attacks - conventional, biological, or chemical - has declined significantly," the document claims.
-"Missile defense is now front and center in America's security policy. That's' certainly a shift from Obama's campaign rhetoric."

For an Obama team that has been skeptical of the past U.S. administrations' efforts to rapidly deploy ballistic missile-defense systems around the world, missile defense sure does get star billing in the United States' newly released report on overall nuclear strategy.

The document claims that missile defense is critical to allowing the United States to shift away from nuclear weapons, especially now that the U.S. will no longer threaten to use nukes to retaliate against non-nuclear attacks, such as from chemical or biological weapons.

The review even features a photo of a missile being shot from an Aegis destroyer in 2007, in what many outside experts saw at the time as a clear demonstration of the fact that U.S. missile defense capabilities can also have offensive uses as well, such as shooting down a satellite.

"Major improvements in missile defenses and counter-weapons of mass destruction (WMD) capabilities have strengthened deterrence and defense against CBW attack," reads the document, known as the Nuclear Posture Review, which will stand as the Obama administration's guiding document on all things nuclear.

"With the advent of U.S. conventional military preeminence and continued improvements in U.S. missile defenses and capabilities to counter and mitigate the effects of [chemical and biological weapons], the role of U.S. nuclear weapons in deterring non-nuclear attacks - conventional, biological, or chemical - has declined significantly," the document claims.

Later on in the document, the administration points to Russia and China's nuclear modernization and notes that both countries view U.S. missile-defense expansion as destabilizing. Secretary Clinton addressed that issue in Tuesday's press conference.

The NPR itself was careful to mention missile defense as only one of several capabilities needed to counter non-nuclear attacks.

But Secretary Clinton was less careful.

"It's no secret that countries around the world remained concerned about our missile-defense program," Clinton said, explaining that the NPR weighs in on "the role [missile defense] can and should play in deterring proliferation and nuclear terrorism."

Ok, so now missile defense can deter chemical attacks, biological attacks, proliferation of nuclear technology, and suitcase bombs?

Regardless, the document makes clear that with fewer nukes to be deployed once the new START agreement goes into effect, and with the role of nuclear weapons now limited to responding to nuclear threats, the administration is now looking to missile defense, among other technologies, to fill in the gap.

"As the role of nuclear weapons is reduced in U.S. national security strategy, these non-nuclear elements will take on a greater share of the deterrence burden," the review reads.

Outside experts doubted that the NPR's suggested shift toward a reliance on missile defense would provide any deterrence for most types of chemical and biological attacks or the use of a nuclear device by a terrorist.

"If they deliver them by missile, fine, but that's not likely to be the case," said Peter Huessy, president of Geostrategic Analysis, a defense consulting firm. "If our biggest threat is terrorists using nukes, then of course deterrence doesn't apply and missile defense doesn't apply either."

Huessy also commented on Obama's embrace of missile defense in the NPR, which seems out of line with the criticism he leveled when running for president in 2008.

"I certainly see a pivot in the sense of what people expected," he said. "Missile defense is now front and center in America's security policy. That's' certainly a shift from Obama's campaign rhetoric."
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3.: Finland: Opposition To NATO Continues To Grow - Poll

Posted by: "Rick Rozoff" rwrozoff@yahoo.com rwrozoff

Tue Apr 6, 2010 8:11 pm (PDT)

http://www.helsinkitimes.fi/htimes/domestic-news/general/10534-finns-increasingly-opposed-to-nato-membership-hs-poll-.html

Helsinki Times
April 6, 2010

Finns increasingly opposed to Nato membership - HS poll

Opposition to Finland's membership in Nato has grown during the past year, indicates a poll printed in the Tuesday edition of national daily Helsingin Sanomat.

According to the poll, 56 per cent of Finns are opposed to joining Nato, while the corresponding figure from February last year was 53 per cent.

The share of Nato membership supporters was at 26 per cent, only one percentage point less than in 2009.

Of all the Finnish parties, only National Coalition voters were predominantly in support of Nato membership.

Polling company Taylor Nelson Sofres (TNS) interviewed 1,000 people by phone during 11-25 March. The margin of error was stated as 3 percentage points either way.
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4.: NATO Air Strike Kills At Least Four Afghan Civilians

Posted by: "Rick Rozoff" rwrozoff@yahoo.com rwrozoff

Tue Apr 6, 2010 8:12 pm (PDT)

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/afghanistan/7559938/Afghanistan-Four-civilians-killed-in-Nato-airstrike.html

The Telegraph
April 6, 2010

Afghanistan: Four civilians killed in Nato airstrike
An air strike by Nato jets killed four civilians including a child during a fire fight with Taliban militants in Helmand province Afghan officials have said
Ben Farmer in Kabul

The bodies of two women, an elderly man and the child were found alongside four suspected fighters after jets were called in to attack a compound used to stage an ambush on a coalition patrol.

The deaths came days after the coalition admitted killing five civilians, including three women, in a bungled night raid in eastern Afghanistan amid accusations it had first tried to cover up the deaths.

The number of civilians killed by foreign troops has caused deep resentment among Afghans and provoked emotional criticism of coalition tactics from Hamid Karzai.
....
Afghan officials said the death toll could rise.
....
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5.: NATO TO PROVIDE TECHNICAL AID TO ARMENIA ON GEORGIAN BORDER

Posted by: "Nazar" muratoglunazar@yahoo.com muratoglunazar

Tue Apr 6, 2010 8:12 pm (PDT)

NATO TO PROVIDE TECHNICAL ASSISTANCE TO ARMENIA ON ARMENIAN-GEORGIAN BORDER

NATO is actively cooperating with the Armenian National Security Service in ensuring border security, the special representative of NATO Secretary General in Caucasus and Central Asia Robert Simmons told a press conference in Yerevan today. The Armenian leadership turned to the Alliance to provide technical assistance at the Armenian-Georgian border. "It is about providing only technical assistance to Armenia, which will help the country fight against smuggling and terror. NATO offers such support to many countries," a senior NATO official said.

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6.: NATO Holds First Session In Georgian Parliament

Posted by: "Rick Rozoff" rwrozoff@yahoo.com rwrozoff

Tue Apr 6, 2010 8:13 pm (PDT)

http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/n.php?n=georgian-parliament-holds-first-nato-georgia-session-2010-04-06

Hurriyet Daily News
Rustavi 2
April 6, 2010

Georgian parliament holds first NATO session

TBILISI: The first session of the NATO-Georgia inter-parliamentary council was opened in the conference hall of the Georgian parliament, the Georgian broadcaster, Rustavi 2, reported on its Web site Tuesday.
....
Giorgi Kandelaki, who chairs the foreign relations committee of the parliament, said the guests inquired [of] the MPs regarding the reforms in the defense sector, including the participation of Georgia in the Afghanistan peacekeeping mission.

The members of the NATO-Georgia inter-parliamentary group will hold meetings in Tbilisi with local authorities and NGOs.

They have been already hosted by State Minister for Euro-Atlantic Integration, Giorgi Baramidze.

The Minister said after the meeting that they discussed the situation in the occupied territories; peaceful regulation of the Russia-Georgia conflict; violation of human rights after the ethnic persecution on the occupied territories; and democratic reforms.

"We need support of the NATO delegation members in order to meet standards necessary for integration with Euro-Atlantic structures. NATO-Georgia relations have progressed. NATO-Georgia Parliamentary Commission starts functioning today and it is very important," Giorgi Baramidze said.
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7.: NATO Partnership Delegation To Visit Azerbaijan

Posted by: "Rick Rozoff" rwrozoff@yahoo.com rwrozoff

Tue Apr 6, 2010 8:13 pm (PDT)

http://www.news.az/articles/12700

Azeri Press Agency
April 6, 2010

NATO parliamentarians to visit Azerbaijan

Members of the NATO Parliamentary Assembly sub-committee on partnerships are to visit Azerbaijan on 11-15 April.

As a rule these events are held in NATO Parliamentary Assembly member-states and associate members, the first deputy speaker of the Azerbaijani parliament, Ziyafat Asgarov, said today.

'The decision was taken to hold the event in Azerbaijan this time. The delegation will consist of 22 members. The list of the parliamentarians from Canada, France, Greece, Italy, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Spain, Romania, Turkey and UK has been confirmed. Representatives of the international secretariat will also attend the event,' Asgarov said.

The delegation will hold meetings with the Azerbaijani delegation to the NATO Parliamentary Assembly, the Defence Ministry, Foreign Ministry, Industry and Energy Ministry and National Security Ministry and meet the head and advisors of the OSCE Office in Baku.

'The aim of the meetings is to discuss the present state of relations between Azerbaijan and NATO,' Asgarov said. 'The present state of the Nagorno Karabakh conflict and negotiations will also be discussed. We will have broad opportunities to provide information about the political, economic and military reforms carried out in Azerbaijan. Of course, we will focus attention on the present state of the settlement of Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.'

Asgarov recalled repeated statements by the heads of the NATO Parliamentary Assembly that Azerbaijan was a reliable partner.

'Both we and the NATO leadership are satisfied with this partnership. As a sign of respect for Azerbaijan, the former president of the NATO Parliamentary Assembly, Jose Lello, will also visit Azerbaijan with the delegation.'
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8.: U.S. Colombian Proxy "Warns Of Arms Race With Venezuela"

Posted by: "Rick Rozoff" rwrozoff@yahoo.com rwrozoff

Tue Apr 6, 2010 8:17 pm (PDT)

http://www.defensenews.com/story.php?i=4571612&c=AME&s=TOP

Agence France-Presse
April 6, 201o

Colombia Warns Of Arms Race With Venezuela

CARTAGENA: Colombian President Alvaro Uribe warned April 6 of the "enormously damaging" effect of a potential regional arms race following Venezuela's latest purchase of Russian weaponry.

Leftist Venezuelan...President Hugo Chavez last week inked new deals with Russia's visiting Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, who said later that the military sales may top $5 billion.

Between 2005 and 2007 Venezuela also bought $4.4 billion worth of Russian weapons, including Sukhoi jet fighters, combat helicopters and Kalashnikov automatic rifles.

"Colombia is a country that has faced the challenge of internal violence but does not participate in the arms race," Uribe, a staunch U.S. ally, told reporters in the northern Caribbean port of Cartagena.

"We must meet our duties to fight terrorism, but we also believe that an arms race is enormously damaging."

Bogota has accused Caracas several times of supporting leftist guerrillas with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), something that Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has denied.

Venezuela, in turn, claims that a new agreement that allows the U.S. military access to Colombian bases represents a potential risk to his country, and "froze" relations with Bogota in July 2009.

The growing military cooperation between Russia and Venezuela, including joint navy exercises with Russian warships in the Caribbean in 2008, has raised worries in the United States that Moscow is encroaching on its traditional zone of influence.

U.S. officials on April 5 publicly worried that the arms may wind up elsewhere in Latin America.

"We're hard-pressed to see what legitimate defense needs Venezuela has for the equipment," said State Department spokesman Philip Crowley.

"Our primary concern is that if Venezuela's going to increase its military hardware, we certainly don't want to see this hardware migrate into other parts of the hemisphere," he said.
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9.: U.S. Threatens Venezuela On "Weapons Proliferation"

Posted by: "Rick Rozoff" rwrozoff@yahoo.com rwrozoff

Tue Apr 6, 2010 8:19 pm (PDT)

http://www.defensenews.com/story.php?i=4569037&c=AME&s=LAN

Agence France-Presse
April 5, 2010

U.S. Warns Venezuela On Weapon Proliferation

WASHINGTON: The United States on Monday questioned Venezuela's need to buy billions of dollars in weapons from Russia and voiced concern that the arms may wind up elsewhere in Latin America.

President Hugo Chavez last week inked new deals with Russia's visiting Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, who said later that the total military sales by Venezuela may top five billion dollars.

State Department spokesman Philip Crowley said that while the two countries had the right to pursue relations, "We're hard-pressed to see what legitimate defense needs Venezuela has for the equipment."

"We can probably think of better things that could be invested on behalf of the Venezuelan people," he said.

"But our primary concern is that if Venezuela's going to increase its military hardware, we certainly don't want to see this hardware migrate into other parts of the hemisphere," he said.

"We would simply remind Venezuela that it, through a number of accords, has a responsibility for transparency in its acquisitions," he said.

The State Department has accused Chavez of assisting guerrillas in rival neighbor Colombia....

The United States last year also questioned Chavez's pursuit of cooperation with Russia on space....
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10.: Obama Hails Saakashvili For Afghan War Role, 'Democratic Commitment'

Posted by: "Rick Rozoff" rwrozoff@yahoo.com rwrozoff

Tue Apr 6, 2010 8:25 pm (PDT)

http://en.rian.ru/world/20100407/158460167.html

Russian Information Agency Novosti
April 7, 2010

Obama thanks Saakashvili for Afghan efforts, praises 'democratic' intentions

Washington: U.S. President Barack Obama has expressed his gratitude to Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili for Georgia's contribution to military operations in Afghanistan and praised the Saakashvili's "commitment" to "democratic" policies, the White House has said.

"President Obama called Georgian President Saakashvili today to thank President Saakashvili for Georgia's significant contribution to the international effort in Afghanistan, as the Georgian battalion deploys this month alongside American Marines in Helmand," a statement issued in Washington said.

Georgia has deployed 175 servicemen in the south Central Asian country and will send an additional battalion later in April, which will make Georgia the largest per capita contributor to the Afghan mission.

Saakashvili has also offered the United States to supply arms to Afghanistan via the Georgian territory. Neighboring Russia has allowed land transits of non-lethal NATO supplies to Afghanistan, as well as Central Asian states of Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan.

The NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) and a separate U.S.-led coalition, involved in Operation Enduring Freedom, have about 89,000 troops in Afghanistan. Obama plans to send an additional 30,000 troops to Afghanistan in the first part of 2010....Other NATO members have also pledged to send 7,000 additional troops to Afghanistan.

During the telephone conversation with Saakashvili, Obama "relayed the strong support of the United States for Georgia's sovereignty and territorial integrity", the statement said, adding the two presidents "discussed the importance of all sides avoiding provocative actions to build stability in the region."

On Wednesday, Russia and former Georgian republic of South Ossetia are expected to sign an agreement on a Russian military base in the republic. A similar agreement was signed in February with Abkhazia, another former Georgian republic.

Moscow recognized the independence of the republics in August 2008 after a five-day war between the two countries.

Tbilisi has fiercely criticized the plans for the bases in South Ossetia and Abkhazia, which it considers part of the Georgian territory.

According to the White House's statement, Obama "appreciated President Saakashvili's continuing commitment to democratic and economic reforms in order to fulfill the promise of the Rose Revolution", which brought Saakashvili to power.

The two presidents also "discussed their shared interest in achieving the historic goals set forth by the upcoming Nuclear Security Summit."

The summit, which Saakashvili is expected to attend, will take place in Washington on April 12-13. Russian President Dmitry Medvedev will also take part in the top-level talks.
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11.: NATO Exercise In Norway: 8,000 Troops From 14 Nations

Posted by: "Rick Rozoff" rwrozoff@yahoo.com rwrozoff

Wed Apr 7, 2010 7:50 am (PDT)

http://www.eucom.mil/english/FullStory.asp?article=352nd-Special-Operations-Group-medical-personnel

United States European Command
April 7, 2010

352nd Special Operations Group medical personnel share ideas during multinational exercise
Air Force Tech. Sgt. Marelise Wood
352nd Special Operations Group Public Affairs

EVENES, Norway — A two-member medical team recently deployed from the 352nd Special Operations Group and briefed local medics on the use of medical equipment in a field environment during Exercise Cold Response 10, an annual multinational training exercise in Norway.
....
Luther and Parish were part of a team of more than 200 352nd SOG Airmen who participated in the exercise. The exercise drew more than 8,000 participants from 14 nations.
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Thursday, April 8, 2010

RUSSIA MUST COUNTER US MISSILE POLICY

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Posted by: "Rick Rozoff" rwrozoff@yahoo.com rwrozoff

Tue Apr 6, 2010 8:09 pm (PDT)

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