Attacks in Afghanistan left 13 dead and many more wounded on Thursday.
A suicide car bombing near an Afghanistan National Army base in Qandahar left 6 dead, three of them military and the other three civilians. Qandahar, a city of 1 million (i.e. slightly larger than Detroit), is a hotbed of Taliban radicalism. It is in the sights of the US military, which intends to invade this large urban civilian population center.
Among the dead, it is feared, are several British contractors. At least three are missing.
Many civilians in Qandahar appear to see themselves as still in the sights of the Taliban, who have a powerful position in the city.
The planned invasion of Qandahar was originally supposed to happen with the acquiescence of the Pashtun clan leaders in the area. Gen. Stanley McChrystal has backed off that pledge, according to Gareth Porter of IPS. This move is a bad sign, since presumably McChrystal could not find enough Afghan support to make good on his pledge.
A key plank of Obama’s Afghanistan policy is that Afghan troops can be trained and equipped to become a modern army. But whether that training will take place is the problem, and how good it would be. It turns out that soldiers need to adjust the sights on their rifles. But the contractors hired by the US military to teach the Pashtuns to fight neglected to teach the Afghanistan troops that they needed to adjust their sights!
In addition, four German soldiers were killed on Thursday by a roadside bomb in Qunduz Province.
The Frontier Post reports that the US is using the Russian route to bring US troops to Afghanistan, presumably because the other routes have become insecure.
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My takeaway from the article on poor training of the Afghan Police by contractors:
Senator Scott Brown is the senior Republican on the Senate Subcommittee on Contract Oversight.
He’s been in office all of 2 months, and he’s the SENIOR GOP member ? Our Congress simply does not think oversight of contracts is important.
The main reason that there is so much corruption in contracts in these 2 wars is because there’s very little transparency. This is Congress’ fault. This is EASY to fix, but they won’t do it.
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Re: US use of Russian routes. It’s possible that a transpolar route over Russia is shorter and cheaper.
The idea of a transpolar route is not new .
The problem is that shorter is not cheaper .
It’s the cost of fuel that makes a difference .
If I want to move a ton of anything , a ship uses less fuel per mile
than any alternative .
A train is second most efficient .
A truck , less so .
If the US abandons the Pakistani route –
i.e. west coast to Karachi port , rail and trucks to Peshawar ,
and trucks up the Khyber , the cost will not increase .
It will multiply .
I think that is what is meant by spending blood and treasure …
or wasting … on a mission impossible .