Wounded British soldiers...

are waking up in hospital to find Taliban prisoners being treated in the next bed.

Tags: Afghanistan British troops Taliban

Amazing description of an incredible battle...

that was fought for nearly seven hours last April, on an Afghan mountainside. 12-man Special Forces team and some Afghan commandos killed an estimated 150 to 200 insurgents. Read it here.

Tags: Special Forces Green Berets Afghanistan

In Afghanistan, Germans can't shoot to kill.

From Der Spiegel:

German special forces had an important Taliban commander in their sights in Afghanistan. But he escaped -- because the Germans were not authorized to use lethal force. The German government's hands-tied approach to the war is causing friction with its NATO allies.

Tags: German forces Taliban Afghanistan war on terror

Meet Lance Corporal Croucher , a Royal Marine and a hero:

[He] and his troop were on patrol last month near their base in Sangin, Helmand province, [Afghanistan] when he stepped into a tripwire that pulled the pin from a boobytrap grenade.

He said: “I thought, I’ve set this bloody thing off and I’m going to do whatever it takes to protect the others. I’m very tight with the three other guys. There have been a few times when they have saved my bacon.

“I knew a grenade like this has a killing circumference of about five metres. So I got down with my back to the grenade and used my body as a shield. It was a case of either having four of us as fatalities or badly wounded, or one.”

Are men born heroes or made heroes?

Thanks to Samizdata.

Tags: Lance Corporal Croucher Royal Marine hero

"In a war, I think that news should be written like the sports pages ...

-- when the local team wins a good newspaper ought to celebrate, and when it loses it should lament and inquire into the reasons. Behold an excellent example ..."

From TigerHawk.

global war on terror Taliban

For us ze war is over by tea time, ja!

A NATO ally's performance in Afghanistan: "THEY are on the front line of the war on terror, but German pilots facing the Taliban are insisting they stop at tea time every day to comply with health and safety regulations.

The helicopter pilots, who provide medical back-up to Nato ground troops, set off for their base by mid-afternoon so they can be grounded by sundown.

Their refusal to fly in the dark is hampering Operation Desert Eagle, an allied offensive, which involves 500 Nato-led troops plus 1,000 Afghan troops and police."

Read more here.


Germany NATO Operation Desert Eagle

Thank you!

I just discovered a "special" blog, Bill & Bob's Excellent Afghan Adventure. The author is right:

This is what it's all about. You can see a lot of the emotions of Afghanistan on their faces. Determination, friendliness, happiness, uncertainty, and trepidation are all there on one face or another. The children of Afghanistan are the future of Afghanistan, and when these children are educated and grown and live in an Islamic democratic society that works, there will be no home in Afghanistan for extremism. That is what will make our country and all the countries of the world safer.

It is not something that will be fixed overnight. And in the meantime there is more work for soldiers and police to do. Either we can do it, or our sons can do it for us. I know that I would prefer that my sons not have to do this.

Afghanistan Global war on terror GWOT military blog

80% of Afghans want the "foreign" troops to remain.

Here's the Toronto Sun's story:

If the CBC had known that a public opinion poll it co-sponsored in Afghanistan would turn out the way it did, you can be assured the CBC wouldn't have had anything to do with it.

Conducted by Environics, the poll probes the attitude of Afghans towards Canadian troops -- both in the Kandahar region, where our guys are fighting the Taliban, and throughout the country.

Only 15% of Afghans wanted Canadian troops to leave immediately; the greater proportion of 80% wanted them to remain until the Taliban was crushed.

You can read more about it here as well.

Canada Afghanistan poll foreign troops

On Afghanistan, "the Germans are eager to distance themselves from the United States in public debates

...insisting that, unlike the Americans, the Germans are mainly involved in civilian reconstruction assistance. But this is precisely where Germany has failed miserably -- in developing the Afghan police force (more...), for example, for which Berlin has assumed primary responsibility. After visiting Afghanistan in the summer, a delegation of members of the Bundestag concluded that the work of the German contingent has been disastrous." Read the whole article.

global war on terror Afghanistan Germany

Polish soldiers attending Mass in Afghanistan.

Click here to see some cool photos of Polish soldiers in Afghanistan.

global war on terror Afghanistan Poland Polish soldiers

The Taliban kill more civilians than NATO...

Spiegel Online has an interview with General Dan McNeill, commander of the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan. Excerpt:

SPIEGEL: Is the Taliban's information campaign more effective than that of the NATO and the Americans?

McNeill: The international audience does automatically believe what they say and I find that absurd. These people kill more civilians than any force amongst the Alliance or the Afghan army. They are hard core extremists. They behead people that don't agree with their positions.

global war on terror Islam Afghanistan NATO Taliban
Operation Enduring Freedom General McNeill

Betcha didn't know about these projects in Afghanistan...

because we never read anything positive coming out of the Afghan "quagmire":

Soldiers from the U.S. Army’s 864th Engineer Combat Battalion (Heavy); 1st Construction Company, 100th Republic of Korea Engineering Group; and Polish 1st Engineer Brigade are working together to construct metal building systems, known as K-Spans; roads; ditches; culverts and sewage lagoons.
...
Polish engineers provide additional capacity and leadership to multiple construction projects. Polish soldiers led by Polish army 1st Lt. Radoslaw Telezynski are working to improve roads by ensuring that proper drainage and sewage structures are constructed before the rainy season begins. The Polish army has been deployed in places such as Lebanon, Syria, and Africa to support many humanitarian missions since the war on terror began.

“I didn’t know what to expect or what missions we would have, but working with American soldiers has been a great experience. They have been very helpful,” Telezynski said. “I have been able to learn different training techniques from the American soldiers and compare them to our techniques. I changed our technique to what works best to accomplish the mission successfully.”

Polish Pfc. Rafaz Sobon agreed. “This is my first time deployed,” he said, “and it has been a new and interesting experience. We learned about different cultures in class, but it is better to learn from first-hand experience.”

Polish Pvt. Piotr Oparski - Photo by 1st Lt. Kenya Virginia Saenz, USA

Read more about it here.

global war on terror Afghanistan Poland coalition

Making a difference: Afghan children visited Poland.

In case you missed it in the regular news: "Sponsored by the Polish Minister of Defense, Afghan students ranging from 10-to 16-years-old were chosen to spend two weeks sightseeing in the eastern European country of Poland, said Jacek Matuszak of the Polish Public Information Office. The trip not only opened up the world around them, but also showed them another way of life other than the one they are familiar."



Read about it here.

global war on terror Afghanistan Poland

Our good ally, Poland.

According to the AFP: Polish Defence Minister Aleksander Szczyglo said Thursday he had asked for government approval to keep 1,200 Polish soldiers in Afghanistan deployed there into 2008.

global war on terror Afghanistanm Poland

Afghanistan: a disaster?

Interview by Der Spiegel with highest-ranking German officer at ISAF headquarters in Kabul, Afhganistan, Major Gen. Bruno Kasdorf. Excerpts of what Major Gen. Kasdorf said:

The limitations that the Germans have placed upon themselves are not regarded as optimal here. If a country takes over reconstruction responsibilities, its teams can, in an emergency, be replaced by reserve units if the Afghans go into battle. That's what we're really talking about here. ...

Much has really already been achieved. Seven million children are going to school; there are 10 universities; and 11,000 kilometers of roads have been built. Perhaps the farmer out in the provinces doesn't see that, but at some point in the future the positive results of this development will touch him. ...

We really do need more forces in order to secure and hold on to areas. That's just one part, though. At least as important are arms, air transport, reconnaissance and, above all, the deployment of specialists. We need a lot more development professionals, advisors and police. I am sure that Afghanistan will be a better place in 20 years. But all of us -- including the Germans -- must think about what we want in Afghanistan, what interests we have here and whether we are ready to deploy the necessary resources.

global war on terror Afghanistan Germany Bruno Kasdorf taliban

Of manly men and crows covering their tails?

“When a crow flies over Kandahar, he only flaps one wing. With the other wing he covers his tail.”

taliban Kandahar Afghanistan homosexuality

Flying kites.

I just read an item about Polish soldiers helping children with kite flying in Afghanistan. It brought back memories of a great book I read a couple of years ago: The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini, a beautifully written novel about friendship, secrets, betrayal and redemption.

Poland Afghanistan kite Kite Runner Khaled Hosseini

Advancing Rule of Law in Prague.

Vaclav Havel, H. Moyer, Sandra Day O'Connor

The common thread at the Democracy and Security Conference in Prague was the role of the Rule of Law in free societies.

Fittingly, the second event I attended in Prague was the board meetings and dedication of the renovated headquarters of The CEELI Institute, which was established in Prague in 1999, and is an institution founded to build on the pro bono public service CEELI (Central European and Eurasian Law Initiative) project set up by the American Bar Association (ABA). I happen to be a member of the International Advisory Board of the CEELI Institute.

Czech President Vaclav Havel has been involved with the Institute from the very beginning. The CEELI Institute is an institution dedicated exclusively to advancing the Rule of Law.

Homer Moyer, co-founder of both ABA/CEELI and the CEELI Institute, led the delegation of board members from the US. Sandra Day O’Connor, the retired Supreme Court Justice of the US, and President Vaclav Havel were the featured speakers at the dedication.

Few outside the legal profession are aware that the CEELI Institute is a Czech public benefit corporation and a graduate-level legal and judicial education center based in Prague. CEELI has trained judges from 29 countries; half of the members of the bar of Kosovo; and the entire Supreme Court of Afghanistan.

CEELI was responsible for exposing the first 140 Iraqi judges to international experts, as part of a project to bring the Rule of Law to countries in transition. All these judges came to the Rule of Law project at great personal risk. The first presiding judge in Saddam Hussein’s trial, Judge Rizgar, was one of CEELI’s graduates. Three of the CEELI participants were assassinated in Iraq.

You can read what I wrote about the one-of-a-kind event involving the Iraqi judges here, and more about the dedication of the CEELI headquarters here.

[rule of law] [Havel] [Sandra Day O'Connor] [CEELI] [Iraq] [Afghanistan] [Rizgar]