KABUL, Afghanistan — An American military detention camp in Afghanistan is still secretly holding inmates for sometimes weeks at a time and without access to the International Committee of the Red Cross, according to human rights researchers and former detainees held at the site on the Bagram Air Base.
The site, known to detainees as the black jail, consists of individual windowless concrete cells, each illuminated by a single light bulb glowing 24 hours a day. In interviews, former detainees said that their only human contact was at twice-daily interrogation sessions.
“The black jail was the most dangerous and fearful place,” said Hamidullah, a spare-parts dealer in Kandahar who was detained there in June. “They don’t let the I.C.R.C. officials or any other civilians see or communicate with the people they keep there. Because I did not know what time it was, I did not know when to pray.” More…
Reporting from Washington – As President Obama is preparing to announce a troop increase and new strategy for the war in Afghanistan, several powerful House committee chairmen have proposed a surtax on Americans to pay the future military costs.
Talk of the levy escalated Tuesday after Obama said he soon would deliver a plan to “finish the job” in Afghanistan. “I feel very confident that when the American people hear a clear rationale for what we’re doing there and how we intend to achieve our goals,” Obama said, “that they will be supportive.”
The suggestion that a surtax be used to help fund the increasingly unpopular war, though unlikely to pass, illustrated the fiscal anxieties that the president will face if he asks Congress to write another big-ticket item into the budget.
“There is serious unrest in our caucus” over whether the U.S. can afford the war, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco) said in a conference call with economists and bloggers. “We have to look at that war with a green eyeshade on.” More…
WASHINGTON – War-weary Americans will support more fighting in Afghanistan once they understand the perils of losing, President Barack Obama declared Tuesday, announcing he was ready to spell out war plans virtually sure to include tens of thousands more U.S. troops.
He is expected to make his case to the nation in a speech next Tuesday night, even as the military completes plans to begin sending in reinforcements in the spring.
Eight years after the Sept. 11 attacks led the U.S. into Afghanistan, Obama said it is still in America’s vital national interest to “dismantle and destroy” al-Qaida terrorists and extremist allies. “I intend to finish the job,” he said.
Obama said he would announce after Thanksgiving his decision on additional troops, and military, congressional and other sources said the occasion would be a Tuesday night televised speech laying out his plans for expanding the Afghan conflict — and then ultimately ending America’s military role. More…
KABUL – U.N.-backed fraud investigators on Monday threw out nearly a third of President Hamid Karzai’s votes from the August election, undercutting his claim of victory and stepping up the pressure for him to accept a runoff.
The Obama administration has been holding off on a decision to send more troops to Afghanistan until a credible government is installed in Kabul.
Both Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and the U.N. secretary general signaled on Monday that a resolution was near.
Clinton said Karzai planned to announce his intentions on Tuesday, adding that she was “encouraged at the direction the situation is moving.” More…
OSLO (AP) — The announcement drew gasps of surprise and cries of too much, too soon. Yet President Barack Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize on Friday because the judges found his promise of disarmament and diplomacy too good to ignore.
The five-member Norwegian Nobel Committee – four of whom spoke to The Associated Press, said awarding Obama the peace prize could be seen as an early vote of confidence intended to build global support for the policies of his young administration.
They lauded the change in global mood wrought by Obama’s calls for peace and cooperation, and praised his pledges to reduce the world stock of nuclear arms, ease U.S. conflicts with Muslim nations and strengthen its role in combating climate change.
“Some people say – and I understand it – ‘Isn’t it premature? Too early?’ Well, I’d say then that it could be too late to respond three years from now,” Thorbjoern Jagland, chairman of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, told the AP. “It is now that we have the opportunity to respond – all of us.” More…
WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama won’t walk away from the flagging war in Afghanistan, the White House declared Monday as Obama faced tough decisions — and intense administration debate — over choices that could help define his presidency in his first year as commander in chief.
The fierce Taliban attack that killed eight American soldiers over the weekend added to the pressure. The assault overwhelmed a remote U.S. outpost where American forces have been stretched thin in battling insurgents, underscoring an appeal from Obama’s top Afghanistan commander for as many as 40,000 additional forces — and at the same time reminding the nation of the costs of war. More…
White House wants to cloak discussion in back rooms for more secrecy and privacy
WASHINGTON — Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates appeared to subtly rebuke America’s top commander in Afghanistan on Monday for publicly speaking out against calls for scaling back the war effort there.
“I believe the decisions that the president will make for the next stage of the Afghanistan campaign will be among the most important of his presidency, so it is important that we take our time to do all we can to get this right,” Mr. Gates said at a gathering here.
“And in this process,” Mr. Gates went on, “it is imperative that all of us taking part in these deliberations — civilians and military alike — provide our best advice to the president candidly but privately.”
The state Senate approved a bill yesterday that would let Governor Deval Patrick appoint an interim successor to Edward M. Kennedy, paving the way for the appointment of a new US senator as early as tomorrow and providing Democrats in Washington the potential 60th vote they have been seeking to pass a health care overhaul.
The state Senate approved the measure by a 24-to-16 vote, just five days after the House had voted 95 to 58 to change Massachusetts election law and allow the appointment of an interim US senator. Both chambers are planning to give a final procedural endorsement to the measure and to send it to the governor’s desk today; the only potential hurdle is that Republicans are contemplating a last-ditch legal challenge in an effort to derail the legislation.
News of the vote reverberated yesterday from Beacon Hill to Washington, where US Senate majority leader Harry Reid, informed of the news when a note was passed to him, pumped his fist into the air and cracked a small smile, according to an aide. More…
BAGRAM AIR BASE, Afghanistan — Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, the top military officer in Afghanistan, has told his commanders to pull forces out of sparsely populated areas where U.S. troops have fought bloody battles with the Taliban for several years and focus them on protecting major Afghan population centers.
But the changes, which amount to a retreat from some areas, have already begun to draw resistance from senior Afghan officials who worry that any pullback from Taliban-held territory will make the weak Afghan government appear even more powerless in the eyes of its people.
Senior U.S. officials said the moves were driven by the realization that some remote regions of Afghanistan, particularly in the Hindu Kush mountains that range through the northeast, were not going to be brought under government control anytime soon. “Personally, I think I am being realistic about this,” said Maj. Gen. Curtis Scaparrotti, the commander of U.S. forces in eastern Afghanistan. “I have more combat power than my predecessors did, but I won’t be as spread out. . . . This is all about freeing up some forces so I can get them out more among the people.” More…
The top U.S. and NATO commander in Afghanistan warns in an urgent, confidential assessment of the war that he needs more forces within the next year and bluntly states that without them, the eight-year conflict “will likely result in failure,” according to a copy of the 66-page document obtained by The Washington Post.
Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal says emphatically: “Failure to gain the initiative and reverse insurgent momentum in the near-term (next 12 months) — while Afghan security capacity matures — risks an outcome where defeating the insurgency is no longer possible.”
His assessment was sent to Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates on Aug. 30 and is now being reviewed by President Obama and his national security team.
McChrystal concludes the document’s five-page Commander’s Summary on a note of muted optimism: “While the situation is serious, success is still achievable.” More…
“14,000 people are losing their health insurance every day NOT because of the cost of health insurance [he pauses to laugh], it’s because they’re losing it because they lost their job!”
Today, in a long speech on the House floor, Rep. Phil Gingrey (R-GA) laid out his case against health care reform. On top of the usual talk about a “government takeover” and “socialized medicine,” Gingrey stressed his belief that, in the midst of a recession, improving the nation’s ailing health care system shouldn’t be President Obama’s top priority. Gingrey acknowledged that 14,000 Americans are losing their health insurance every day, but literally laughed off the notion that this constitutes a health care crisis. Rather, he said, “14,000 people are losing their health insurance every day NOT because of the cost of health insurance [laughs], they’re losing it because they lost their job!”
Media Matters catches Republican Congressman Phil Gingrey (Georgia) in a pretty insensitive moment during a speech on the floor of the House. At one point during his long speech railing against health care reform, Gingrey found the idea amusing that 14,000 Americans losing their health insurance every day constituted some kind of health care crisis:
