Sunday, October 24, 2010

China Loves USA-China Announces Naval Drill Ahead Of U.S. Show Of Force





Messages In This Digest (11 Messages)

Messages

1.

German Defense Chief Visits Afghan Combat Zone

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

Sun Aug 29, 2010 6:43 am (PDT)



http://www.monstersandcritics.com/news/europe/news/article_1580749.php/German-defence-minister-visits-Afghan-combat-zone-1st-Lead

Deutsche Presse-Agentur
August 29, 2010

German defence minister visits Afghan combat zone

Kunduz: German Defence Minister Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg visited a combat zone in Afghanistan on Sunday, the first time a senior German politician has met German troops who are facing off day to day against the Taliban.

An army helicopter took him from the German base in Kunduz to the outpost 70 kilometres away in troubled Baghlan province.

A German quick reaction force is deployed at the outpost and conducts operations in the area in tandem with the Afghan Army. Just 15 kilometres from the outpost, four Germans defending a dusty hill were killed in April during a Taliban attack.
....
Guttenberg, who has served in Germany's army reserve, added that he had been wanting for some time to visit German forces in the combat zone.
....
Guttenberg arrived in Afghanistan for the previously unannounced visit on Saturday, accompanied by the speaker of parliament, Norbert Lammert. They took part in ceremonies paying tribute to German soldiers who had been killed.

The Germans are serving with the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF).

Guttenberg and Lammert also were briefed in Kunduz about the German forces' new training and protective battalion which is to be up to full operational strength of 650 soldiers in early September.

The unit is to jointly plan and carry out operations together with regular Afghan army forces with the aim of improving and speeding up the training of Afghan soldiers. A second such battalion is to follow in the autumn.

Guttenberg and Lammert began their tour on Saturday in Mazar-i-Sharif. It is Lammert's first trip to Afghanistan since he became speaker of the lower house five years ago. For Guttenberg, it is his fifth visit since becoming defence minister last October.
===========================
Stop NATO
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/stopnato

Blog site:
http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/

To subscribe, send an e-mail to:
rwrozoff@yahoo.com
or
stopnato-subscribe@yahoogroups.com

Daily digest option available.
==============================

2.

Afghanistan: U.S. Loses Seven Soldiers Over The Weekend

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

Sun Aug 29, 2010 6:43 am (PDT)



http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100829/ap_on_re_as/as_afghanistan

Associated Press
August 29, 2010

7 US troops killed in latest Afghanistan fighting
Christopher Bodeen

KABUL, Afghanistan: Seven U.S. troops have died in weekend attacks in Afghanistan's embattled southern and eastern regions, while officials found the bodies Sunday of five kidnapped campaign workers for a female candidate in the western province of Herat.

Two servicemen died in bombings Sunday in southern Afghanistan, while two others were killed in a bomb attack in the south on Saturday and three in fighting in the east the same day, NATO said. Their identities and other details were being withheld until relatives could be notified.

The latest deaths bring to 42 the number of American forces who have died this month in Afghanistan after July's high of 66. A total of 62 international forces have died in the country this month, including seven British troops.
....
----------------------------------------------------------
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/140420.html

Press TV
August 29, 2010

Seven Americans killed in Afghanistan

Separate Taliban attacks and bomb explosions have left seven American soldiers dead in Afghanistan's most volatile regions, NATO has reported.

Three soldiers were killed while they were fighting militants in two separate battles in eastern parts of Afghanistan on Saturday, the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) said in a statement.

Two other soldiers lost their lives in an improvised bomb attack in the country's south on the same day, while two more were killed in separate attacks in the south on Sunday, ISAF said.

The statements did not reveal the nationalities of the casualties but a military spokesman said that "all were Americans," AFP reported.

The latest deaths bring the toll among the US-led forces in Afghanistan to 472 so far this year.

The incidents come as the number of attacks against Western troops in Afghanistan has soared significantly in the past months amid a public outcry against the prolonged war.
===========================
Stop NATO
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/stopnato

Blog site:
http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/

To subscribe, send an e-mail to:
rwrozoff@yahoo.com
or
stopnato-subscribe@yahoogroups.com

Daily digest option available.
==============================

3.

Poland Showcases U.S. F-16 Fighter Jets

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

Sun Aug 29, 2010 6:43 am (PDT)



http://www.thenews.pl/national/artykul138564_pres-komorowski-attends-air-force-day-celebrations.html

Polish Radio
August 28, 2010

Pres Komorowski attends Air Force Day celebrations


Poland's president, Bronislaw Komorowski, visited the Lask Air Force Base, Saturday, where sixteen F-16 fighter jets are stationed, for the ongoing Air Force Day celebrations.

In his speech at the anniversary meeting, Komorowski heralded back to the time he spent as defence minister in Jerzy Buzek's government between 1997-2001, when he managed to put through the parliamentary bill for the purchase of the fighter jets.

"Today, Lask reflects the difficult road to transforming the Polish Armed Forces, as well as managing to show how much has already been achieved," Bronislaw Komorowski said, adding that "[in Lask] it is possible to see a positive future for the Air Force and the entire Armed Forces."

Poland's president commemorated the airmen who died in the CASA plane crash near Miroslawiec in 2008, as well as the Tu-154 presidential plane catastrophe in April this year, killing all 96 on board.
===========================
Stop NATO
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/stopnato

Blog site:
http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/

To subscribe, send an e-mail to:
rwrozoff@yahoo.com
or
stopnato-subscribe@yahoogroups.com

Daily digest option available.
==============================

4.

China Announces Naval Drill Ahead Of U.S. Show Of Force

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

Sun Aug 29, 2010 6:43 am (PDT)



http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/38709527/ns/world_news-asiapacific/

Reuters
August 29, 2010

China announces navy drill ahead of U.S. show of force

BEIJING: The Chinese navy will hold a live-ammunition exercise in the Yellow Sea, where Washington and Seoul announced their own plan for a military exercise that has riled Beijing, China's Ministry of Defense said on Sunday.

The Ministry said a naval fleet will stage the drill this week from Wednesday to Saturday in the sea between China and the Korean peninsula, the official Xinhua news agency reported.

"This is an annual routine training exercise, mainly involving the firing of shipboard artillery," the Ministry said, according to Xinhua.

The announcement, nonetheless, follows a pattern of China publicizing its own military exercises in parallel to those held by Washington and Seoul, which Beijing has criticized as destabilizing at a time of tensions over North Korea.

China said its naval exercise will be held off its coastal city of Qingdao, meaning they will be well away from the U.S.-South Korea exercises in waters closer to the Korean coast.

The North's secretive leader Kim Jong-il appears to be now visiting China, his country's only major ally, Chinese and South Korean sources have said.

Friction between Beijing and Washington over Chinese maritime claims and U.S. naval activities has added to irritants between the two countries, which have also sparred this year over Taiwan, Tibet, the Internet and Chinese exchange rate policy.

The United States has criticized Chinese claims to swathes of the South China Sea, where Taiwan and several Southeast Asian states also assert sovereignty.

The United States has said it will conduct an anti-submarine warfare exercise with South Korea in the Yellow Sea in early September....

Last month, the United States and South Korea held a naval drill in the Sea of Japan off the Korean peninsula, prompting condemnation from China, which answered with its own heavily publicized military exercises.

The July drill was initially scheduled to take place in the Yellow Sea, but was moved to the other side of the Korean peninsula after objections from Beijing.
....
Chinese military newspapers have said the U.S.-led military exercises in the Yellow Sea would be unduly provocative at a time of volatile tensions over North Korea.

Chinese Rear Admiral Yang Yi also said that those exercises would be provocatively close to north China's political and economic heartland.
----------------------------------------------------------
http://en.rian.ru/mlitary_news/20100829/160381641.html

Russian Information Agency Novosti
August 29, 2010

China to stage 4-day naval drill in September

Beijing: The Chinese Naval Fleet will hold live-ammunition naval exercise in the Yellow Sea in the beginning of September, the Chinese Defense Ministry announced on Sunday in a statement.

The drill will be staged this week from September 1 to September 4 in the sea between China and the Korean peninsula and will come ahead of a parallel U.S.-South Korean joint naval exercise.

"The oncoming scheduled rehearsal will be held in accordance with the annual plan in a region, where exercises of the People's Liberation Army [of China] are traditional," the statement said.

The exercise is aimed at training naval artillery's skills, the ministry's statement said.

The Chinese military exercise will be held off the Chinese coastal city of Qingdao, Beijing said. This way, the drill will be well away from the U.S.-South Korean naval exercise, which will be staged off the west coast of the Korean peninsula.
===========================
Stop NATO
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/stopnato

Blog site:
http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/

To subscribe, send an e-mail to:
rwrozoff@yahoo.com
or
stopnato-subscribe@yahoogroups.com

Daily digest option available.
==============================

5.

U.S. Military Involvement To Worsen Situation In Yemen

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

Sun Aug 29, 2010 6:43 am (PDT)



http://news.xinhuanet.com/english2010/indepth/2010-08/29/c_13468167.htm

Xinhua News Agency
August 29, 2010

U.S. military involvement may worsen situation in Yemen 


SANAA: The U.S. military's high-profile involvement in Sanaa's operations against al-Qaida in Yemen may further fuel anti-U.S. sentiment among local population and make things worse for the Yemeni authorities, analysts say.

The U.S.'s open involvement is also causing embarrassment for Yemeni authorities, who have insisted Yemeni military forces alone are responsible for anti-terror operations in the country and that the U.S. military's job is limited to intelligence and training.

U.S. officials have recently admitted that the U.S. has mounted raids on al-Qaida's affiliates in Yemen and they have also indicated that the U.S. anti-terror focus is shifting to Yemen.

According to a New York Times report on Aug. 14, the U.S. launched an air raid on al-Qaida's branch in the northeastern province of Marib in May, in its fourth onslaught on al-Qaida bases in the country since last December.

Washington had been tight-lipped about its "secret bombing raids" against al-Qaida's affiliates.

And according to a Washington Post article on Aug. 25, for the first time since Sep. 11, 2001, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) called al-Qaida in Yemen the top terror threat to U.S. security, as al-Qaida has been decimated by predator strikes in Pakistan.

The Obama administration officials have called for an escalation of U.S. operations, worried that Yemen may become the next training center for al-Qaida. Drone strikes were suggested.

Asked to comment on these reports, a Yemeni Foreign Ministry spokesman told Xinhua by telephone that the reports about the U.S. military's involvement in anti-terror operations in Yemen have left the Yemeni government in an awkward dilemma, and the United States should be responsible for these reports.

During a visit to Sanaa earlier this year, Senator Joseph Lieberman, chairman of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, said: "Iraq was yesterday's war. Afghanistan is today's war. If we don't act preemptively, Yemen will be tomorrow's war."
....
Ayman al-Zawahiri, deputy operations chief of al-Qaida, said last month the U.S. military forces had already been involved in operations in Yemen and he urged religious leaders to mount a jihad, or holy war against the U.S.

He mentioned U.S. missile attacks in southern Yemen in the Gulf of Aden last December, in which 43 al-Qaida members and 42 civilians were killed.

In January, over 100 religious leaders gathered in Sanaa, declaring that they would start a jihad if there was a foreign military invasion.

On May 24, Yemeni tribes condemned the U.S. for its air raid on Marib, as well as bombings of oil pipelines between May 25 and June 12.

A former bodyguard of Osama bin Laden predicted on Friday that a war between the Yemeni government and al-Qaida troops may break out and the U.S. would intervene militarily when it is deemed necessary.

Al-Qaida's rise in the south of Yemen has aroused deep concerns in the U.S. However, Washington's high-profile military involvement would only backfire, as it is likely to have a negative impact on the political situation in the country and further stoke up anti-U.S. sentiment, with more extremists swarming to Yemen to join a jihad against the U.S., analysts say.
===========================
Stop NATO
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/stopnato

Blog site:
http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/

To subscribe, send an e-mail to:
rwrozoff@yahoo.com
or
stopnato-subscribe@yahoogroups.com

Daily digest option available.
==============================

6.

NATO MAY CANCEL EXERCISES IN ARMENIA, IF TURKEY DOESN'T ALLOW PASSAG

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

Sun Aug 29, 2010 6:44 am (PDT)



NATO MAY CANCEL EXERCISES IN ARMENIA, IF TURKEY DOESN'T ALLOW PASSAGE OF ITS CONVOY

Tert.am
25.08.10

If Turkey does not give its consent to the NATO convoy to pass through
its borders to the territory of Armenia, the NATO exercises scheduled
for September 11-17 can be cancelled, said the head of the Turkish
Foreign Ministry's department for Eurasia Mehmet Fatih Ceylan.

"In theory, Turkey cannot to give permission and not to open the
border to pass the necessary equipment. But it will be exercises for
the emergency situations ministry to train for the fight against the
natural disaster that will not take a military character," Turkish
diplomat told Azerbaijani news agency Trend.

According to Ceylan, if NATOcarries military-technical equipment
through Turkey's territory for exercises in Armenia, then Ankara
would not give its consent. Given the exercises will take place
within the emergency situations, Turkey will likely open its border
with Armenia only for the transportation of necessary equipment for
the NATO exercises," said Ceylan.

"The scenario is that earthquake occurs in Armenia and NATO forces
are sent there to provide necessary assistance," Ceylan said, adding
that for this kind of exercise, Turkey, as a member of the alliance,
must allow a NATO convoy to pass through its borders. However, this
step does not mean that Turkey will officially open its border with
Armenia, the diplomat said.

Turkey closed down the border with Armenia in solidarity with
Azerbaijan in the 1993 Karabakh war.

7.

Armenia: NATO Holds Exercise In CSTO Territory

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

Sun Aug 29, 2010 2:43 pm (PDT)



http://www.panarmenian.net/eng/politics/news/52588/Over_600_people_to_participate_in_Armenia_2010_NATO_exercise

PanArmenian.net
August 27, 2010

Over 600 people to participate in Armenia 2010 NATO exercise

The Euro-Atlantic Disaster Response Coordination Centre (EADRCC) will conduct the consequence management field exercise Armenia 2010 from September 11 to 17, 2010 in the town of Arzni, in the Kotayk region of Armenia.

Teams from 15 Euro-Atlantic Partnership Council (EAPC) and Mediterranean Dialogue (MD) nations are planned to take part in the exercise and 11 additional countries are scheduled to participate by sending staff officers.

All together, more than 600 individuals belonging to civilian and military teams from NATO and partner countries with capabilities to deal with different aspects of emergencies will take part in the event. Some 40 observers are also expected. "Armenia 2010" will allow NATO and partner countries to practice disaster response mechanisms and capabilities and to enhance co-operation in emergency situations.
....
The exercise Armenia 2010 is an Armenian contribution to the Partnership for Peace (PfP) Work Programme for 2010. Since 2000, this is the twelfth field exercise conducted by the EADRCC.
===========================
Stop NATO
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/stopnato

Blog site:
http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/

To subscribe, send an e-mail to:
rwrozoff@yahoo.com
or
stopnato-subscribe@yahoogroups.com

Daily digest option available.
==============================

8.

20 Years Of Conflict Has Cost Middle East $12 Trillion

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

Sun Aug 29, 2010 2:43 pm (PDT)



http://news.xinhuanet.com/english2010/world/2010-08/29/c_13468307.htm

Xinhua News Agency
August 29, 2010

Conflict has cost Middle East $12 trillion: report


CAIRO: The 20 years of conflict has cost the Middle East region 12 trillion U.S. dollars during the period from 1991 to 2010, Egypt's official MENA news agency reported on Sunday quoting an Indian report.

The report was published in a book entitled "The Cost of Conflict in the Middle East" by the Strategic Foresight Group in India and translated by the Institute for Peace Studies of Egypt.

The Middle East region afforded a high record of military expenses in the past 20 years and is considered the most armed region in the world, the report said.

The conflict had a negative effect on the Palestinians. The death toll from the conflict has increased to 4,000 Palestinians since 2000, while the number of people living under poverty line has risen to more than one million since 2006, the report said.

The report added that 42 percent of Palestinian families were barred from health care facilities due to the segregating walls that divide their lands.

Countries in the region could have reached a 6 percent growth of its national domestic production, but they failed due to the lack of political stability, it added.
===========================
Stop NATO
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/stopnato

Blog site:
http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/

To subscribe, send an e-mail to:
rwrozoff@yahoo.com
or
stopnato-subscribe@yahoogroups.com

Daily digest option available.
==============================

9.

Gathering Storm: Ever Expanding NATO Threatens Global Security

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

Sun Aug 29, 2010 2:46 pm (PDT)




The Gathering Storm
How NATO's ever expanding reach threatens global security
Antony C. Black
tal1@cogeco.ca


Around the globe an ominous build-up of military might is taking place, and it is doing so almost entirely beneath the radar of public attention.

Since 2005 a large scale stockpiling and deployment of advanced weapons systems has been effected throughout the territories and seas surrounding Russia, China, and Iran. These include, as a bare outline: major US weapons transfers to Israel, Saudi Arabia, the Gulf States and India; US Patriot missiles in Poland; an early missile warning system in the Czech Republic; new US military bases and troop placements in Georgia, the Balkans, Eastern Europe and Central Asia; US naval deployments in the Black Sea; new US and NATO weapons systems situated in Japan, Taiwan, the Philippines, Thailand, Indonesia, and Australia; a formidable new naval armada, including nuclear-weapons-bearing Israeli submarines, in the Persian Gulf; and, finally, a host of new US air and ship-based anti-ballistic missile systems located on US fleets throughout the Mediterranean, the Sea of Japan, the Taiwan St. and the South China Sea.

In addition to these ordnance deployments, the United States and NATO have not only struck countless bilateral and multilateral military deals and alliances around the globe, but have, over the past two years, dramatically stepped up their war games and drills in the Far East.

Just as significant as these material and strategic manoeuvres, however, are the, now, completely integrated and 'interoperable' command structures and weapons systems of the 28 NATO nations and their 47 NATO 'partners'. This, then, is the largest, the most sophisticated, the best organized war-machine the world has ever seen. And, of course, it is all for your benefit. It is all about global security. You can sleep sounder tonight. The world is now a safer place.

Or is it?

Target Iran

Though the ultimate strategic objective of this massive build-up of military might would seem, all rose-coloured lenses aside, to be the 'containment' of the world's burgeoning new economic powerhouse, China, the more immediate tactical goal is clearly Iran.

Still, the whys and wherefores for yet another 'pre-emptive' attack on yet another Muslim nation remain rather murky. Military experts, for instance, are in agreement that any ground invasion of Iran is totally out of the question. They also largely agree that any expectations of an internal 'regime change' following a US/Israeli/NATO air assault on Iran's nuclear reactors is sheer fantasy.

But then perhaps the fear of Iran developing a nuclear arsenal is the reason? Unfortunately, such a notion doesn't square with the facts, for according to the Pentagon's own National Intelligence Estimate of 2007, whatever weapons programs Iran may have been working on, these were all entirely abandoned by 2003. Nor does it square with the International Atomic Energy Agency's repeated assertions that Iran has never been found in violation of the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). [What Iran is apparently 'guilty' of is refusing to accede to Washington's demand that Iran stop all peaceful nuclear development, period. Such a demand is, of course, illegal under the NPT]. Nor does the alleged fear of a nuclear Iran jive with the fact that Teheran accepted the May 27 proposal by Turkey and Brazil to have Iran's fuel rods enriched and stored in a third party country (Russia), a proposal which the Obama Administration rejected out of hand.

Given all this, what then could possibly be the raison d'etre of such an attack?

The answer, if we repair to the history of both the 1991 Gulf War and the 2003 invasion of Iraq, is clear. In short, the hawks in Washington and Tel Aviv are likely planning to target not just Iran's nuclear power reactors (a pretext, more or less) but, as in Iraq, the entire civilian infrastructure of the country. The goal? Not to occupy, and not to promote 'regime change', but simply to destroy and cripple Iran as a regional power. This, in conjunction with the occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan, would then assure Israel hegemony over the Mid-East and the United States hegemony over the territories, resources and pipelines of Central Asia and the Caspian Sea Basin. The US would then largely control the energy spigot running west to Europe and east in to China. Badda-bing badda-boom.

Shades of Dr. Strangelove

There is, however, a tiny fly in this strategic ointment. Apart from the massive humanitarian catastrophe it would cause - and the heinous war crime it would represent - such an attack would likely inflame the entire region. Few seem to remember that the tensions arising from the 2001 US invasion of Afghanistan almost precipitated a nuclear war between Pakistan and India. As scientists assure us, even as small a nuclear exchange as between those two nations, i.e. 100 or so missiles, would throw the world into a nuclear 'autumn' killing over a billion and destroying global civilization as we know it.

Even were a mini (or maxi) Armageddon to be avoided, the Muslim world would assuredly go completely ape. The Shiites in Iraq would turn the country into a US graveyard. Israel would likely attack Iran, Syria and Lebanon simultaneously, and would be targeted in turn. The Iranians, if they didn't return fire on Israel or sink a number of US warships in the Persian Gulf, thus prompting a nuclear reply from either or both, would, at the very least, sink some oil tankers and close off the Straight of Hormuz. That would cut off the supply of oil from the Mid-East and possibly lead to a world-wide economic catastrophe. Hopefully the Russians or the Chinese wouldn't get involved. And, here at home, we arm-chair warriors would be lucky to avoid terrorist attacks on the Toronto subway system.

So perhaps, just perhaps, before we cheerlead ourselves into the next 'lovely little war', we should give pause and consider whether the global machinations of the 'incredibly expanding alliance' are really about making the world a safer place, or about something rather different.
===========================
Stop NATO
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/stopnato

Blog site:
http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/

To subscribe, send an e-mail to:
rwrozoff@yahoo.com
or
stopnato-subscribe@yahoogroups.com

Daily digest option available.
==============================

10.

Four NATO Oil Tankers Destroyed In Pakistan

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

Sun Aug 29, 2010 2:55 pm (PDT)



http://news.xinhuanet.com/english2010/world/2010-08/29/c_13468331.htm

Xinhua News Agency
August 29, 2010

4 NATO oil tankers destroyed by Taliban in Pakistan


ISLAMABAD: At least four NATO supply oil tankers were completely destroyed Sunday in an attack near Torkham, Pakistan-Afghanistan border area in northwest of Pakistan, local media reported.

Militants attacked NATO tankers supply caravan in with rockets turning the four tankers into ashes in Khyber Agency tribal area of Pakistan, local sources told DAWN. However, no casualties were reported.

Major incidents include an attack in June when 60 NATO supply trucks were burnt to ashes and eight local drivers were killed and several injured in an attack near capital city Islamabad. While in April four policemen were killed as 12 NATO trucks were burnt in eastern Punjab province.

Attacks on NATO supply truck have been accelerated this year where almost a hundred of trucks and oil tanker carrying supplies to 140,000 U.S. and multinational troops fighting insurgency in Afghanistan were frequently attacked and destroyed in southern Balochistan and troubled northwest Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.

However, the U.S Embassy in a clarifying statement on Friday denied news reports that the continuing devastating floods in Pakistan have disrupted supply to NATO forces in Afghanistan through Pakistan.

Some 70 percent of NATO supplies and 40 percent of its fuel are being shipped through trucks into the landlocked Afghanistan from the southern Pakistani port city of Karachi. Shipment of arms and ammunition to NATO troops fighting Taliban in Afghanistan through land routes had also been resented in Pakistan.
===========================
Stop NATO
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/stopnato

Blog site:
http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/

To subscribe, send an e-mail to:
rwrozoff@yahoo.com
or
stopnato-subscribe@yahoogroups.com

Daily digest option available.
==============================

11.

Young U.S. Veteran's Story About Iraq

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

Sun Aug 29, 2010 3:41 pm (PDT)



http://news.xinhuanet.com/english2010/indepth/2010-08/29/c_13468169.htm

Xinhua News Agency
August 29, 2010

A young U.S. veteran's story about Iraq
by Wang Fengfeng

WASHINGTON: Josh Stieber didn't feel much relieved when he heard the news the last U.S. combat troops were pulling out of Iraq by the end of this month.

Though "grateful for every little bit" of progress, the 22-year-old U.S. Army veteran says he is still cautious not to "celebrate and think that everything is over with, as the reality is "pretty far from that."

Stieber, who served in Iraq for 14 months, is too familiar with the reality of the war.

The eldest son of a salesman and a health worker, and born and raised in the Maryland section of the Washington D.C. area, Stieber recalled he saw a "big hole" in the ground after a hijacked jetliner crashed into the Pentagon in the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the U.S. in 2001.

Stiever joined the army right out of high school in 2006 at the age of 18 to "make sure something like 9/11 never happens again."

He was sent to Iraq with the 1st Infantry Division in February 2007. But what he experienced there was disillusionment and frustration. As part of the U.S. troop surge in 2007, he witnessed one of the most violent stretches of the Iraq war.

"We went into it thinking we would solve all this problem and make the world a better place, but realized early on we didn't seem to be helping the problem," he said.

"For the most part, we are making it worse," he added.

After finishing his mission in Iraq, Stieber went back home in 2008, but he couldn't help thinking about what the military had done to families and neighborhoods in Iraq - kicking down doors and ripping through houses to search for "insurgents," and detaining people, sometimes for no reasons.

"What if a different army comes in and takes me or takes my dad away?" he would ask himself. "I know I wouldn't want it," he said, and this brought on a huge question about the war.

Then he became an anti-war activist.

For six months last year, with such a question in mind, Stieber walked and cycled around the country, from Atlantic Maryland to Pacific California, talking about peace and non-violent alternatives with folks and youths he met along the way, hoping, in his own words, to spread the lesson he learned in Iraq.

It might well be a sense of closure for Stieber, when earlier last week, the 4th Stryker Brigade Combat Team, 2nd Infantry Division, left Iraq in a move that many saw as symbolizing the end of the U.S. combat operations in that country, while the formal change in mission is set for Sept. 1.

However, Stieber says the withdrawal of combat troops from Iraq was merely a beginning. "A lot of the soldiers are probably gonna end up in Afghanistan sooner or later."

"There are still 50,000 troops that are being left there (in Iraq), and (they) might not be specifically combat units, but definitely combat trained, and prepared to use that (training), and there's the increase in private contractors," he said, with a look of concern on his face.

Washington says the 50,000 U.S. troops would remain in Iraq to conduct support and training missions. The last batch of U.S. troops is scheduled to leave Iraq by the end of 2011.

However, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, Ray Odierno, said last week that the United States could maintain a military presence in Iraq after the 2011 deadline "if the government of Iraq requests some technical assistance."

As the deadline for withdrawing combat troops looms, Stieber said it would be easy for people to forget about the impact the war had on U.S. soldiers and on Iraqi people alike. He wants to remind people of the horror of the war, and make sure such things never happen again.

"Something a lot of people don't think about is just the many lives that have been affected on both sides," he said, recalling friends who end up going to psychological institutions because of post traumatic stress disorder as a result of the war.

"Some of the things we saw there, and the way that a lot of people in Iraq was treated, and so many of them were forced from their homes, and the things that went on in their lives," he said.

"I hope people would not think that combat troops are gone, and we don't have to worry about Iraq any more," he added.
===========================
Stop NATO
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/stopnato

Blog site:
http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/

To subscribe, send an e-mail to:
rwrozoff@yahoo.com
or
stopnato-subscribe@yahoogroups.com

Daily digest option available.
==============================

Recent Activity
Visit Your Group
Stay on top

of your group

activity with

Yahoo! Toolbar

Group Charity

Be the Change

A citizen movement

to change the world

Sitebuilder

Build a web site

quickly & easily

with Sitebuilder.

Need to Reply?

Click one of the "Reply" links to respond to a specific message in the Daily Digest.


at 10:35 PM

No comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)