Robert Bales Charged With 17 Counts Of Murder: PTSD & The U.C.M.J. ("War On Trial")

Staff Sgt. Robert Bales is being Charged with 17 Counts of Murder on Friday.
Before everyone gets all riled up please remember Bales is Still a Soldier under UCMJ Law (Uniform Military Code Of Justice).
The Legal System is completely different under the UCMJ.
First there is a Court Martial, then he still has the right to Legal Counsel & an Investigation.
Next where is the Evidence?
There were NO Autopsies because the Alleged Victims were Buried Immediately according to Muslim Law.
on top of all that, Bales had PTSD, Serious Mental Health Issues yet the Army continued to Deploy him to a Combat Zone, thus Bales can't even be Discharged right now.
Higher Standard My Foot!
The Man had a Brain Injury, was Mentally & Physically Stressed Out!
The Army knew this Man had Serious Mental & Health Issues yet they continued to Deploy him to a War that America should have been out of long ago.
So Even if its Fast-Tracked it may take Years to Prosecute because this is NOT a Civilian Case!
So everyone needs to Calm Down.
The U.S. Military does NOT treat its Soldiers like Trash when they get into Legal Trouble.
Especially when they have Served for Several Years as a Good Soldier when On-Duty.
His Military Record is Outstanding even if his Personal life was a little messed up.
So everyone needs to just calm down.
Let's focus on getting Out of Afghanistan NOW to prevent other Tragedies like this from occurring.



Bales to be charged with murder in Afghan killings


Army Staff Sgt. Robert Bales will be charged with 17 counts of murder in connection with a shooting spree in an Afghan village that left women and children dead and severely tested U.S.-Afghan relations, a U.S. official said.

The official declined to be identified because the charges have not been publicly released yet.

Bales will also face six counts of attempted murder and six counts of aggravated assault, as well as dereliction of duty and other violations of military law, the Associated Press reported, citing an unidentified U.S official.

Bales is being held in a solitary cell in the military prison at Fort Leavenworth in Kansas. The charges are to be read to him today.

Bales, who was on his fourth combat tour, allegedly sneaked from his military outpost in Kandahar province at 3 a.m. March 11 and walked to two villages where he shot, stabbed and burned villagers, including nine children.

The military originally said Bales was suspected in the killing of 16 Afghan villagers, but changed that Thursday to 17, raising the number of adults by one but without explaining why.

The massacre followed the accidental burnings of Qurans at a U.S. base in Afghanistan, which touched off waves of deadly rioting. No one has suggested a motive for the shootings, but the massacre has highlighted the issues of combat stress and frequent deployments.

Bales, 38, joined the Army on Nov. 8, 2001, two months after the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Friends say he was driven by patriotism, but Bales' financial businesses had gone bust, and regulators were investigating him for allegedly bilking an Ohio couple of their retirement savings.

He deployed three times to Iraq before Afghanistan. During his second deployment, he fought in Najaf to recover a downed helicopter. His platoon leader praised him, and in a newspaper article, Bales recalled it as one of his proudest moments. He arrived in Afghanistan in December. His unit provided security at a small outpost.

Two days before the killings, one of Bales' fellow soldiers lost a leg after stepping on a mine, said John Henry Browne, Bales' civilian attorney. Bales also suffered a minor head injury in 2010 as a passenger in a Humvee that flipped, Browne said. "I'm not putting the war on trial, but the war is on trial," Browne said.


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Karzai Demands U.S. Troops Return To Their Main Bases; He Wants Our Troops Out!

Karzai urges American pullback after massacre

American troops should pull out of outposts in Afghan villages and return to their main bases, Afghan President Hamid Karzai told U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta on Thursday, Karzai's office said.

The statement comes days after an American soldier was accused of leaving an outpost and killing 16 Afghan men, women and children in their villages.

Karzai called the shootings in Kandahar province a cruel act against the people of Afghanistan, and told Panetta that Afghans have lost trust in international forces, the presidential palace said in a written release.

Afghans took to the streets of one city Thursday to demand that the U.S. suspect be prosecuted in Afghanistan, while an Afghan lawmaker accused the United States of showing "a fake video ... to convince the Afghan people that it was the act of only one soldier."

Muhammad Naim Lalai said he was one of several Afghan officials shown a surveillance video on the soldier's base in Kandahar province.

"We were shown a video in which a soldier climbs the wall of a military base and then goes indoors and pulls his bullet-proof jacket off and then puts his arms up to surrender himself," Lalai told CNN, expressing doubt that the video was genuine.

The United States has not confirmed it showed footage from the base to Afghans, but a U.S. official has confirmed there is a video showing the suspect laying on the ground outside the base and then attempting to "low crawl" back into the outpost.

Also Thursday, the Afghan Taliban announced they were suspending an office they opened this year in the Gulf state of Qatar, designed to enable talks with the United States.

The Taliban's e-mailed blamed what the group called the Americans' "ever-changing position." The move came after the Taliban threatened to behead Americans in retaliation for Sunday's killings.

The U.S. suspect was flown out of the country Wednesday before Panetta met Karzai in Kabul on Thursday morning.

Karzai pressed Panetta for international forces to hand over security control of the country to the Afghan military by 2013 instead of 2014, his office said.

"President Karzai asked for the transition to be completed by 2013. He did not ask that all international troops leave the country by then," his spokesman, Aimal Faiz, said.
U.S. President Barack Obama said Wednesday that a summit of NATO leaders in May in Chicago will "determine the next phase of transition," including "shifting to a support role next year ... in advance of Afghans' taking full responsibility for security in 2014."

Panetta was wrapping up a two-day trip, the first by a high-ranking American official since Sunday's killings in the Panjwai district of Afghanistan's Kandahar province. Panetta's trip was scheduled before the attacks.

In Qalat, a city near the two villages at the center of the rampage, protesters chanted anti-American slogans, called for justice and demanded the soldier be publicly prosecuted in Afghanistan.

The demonstration was organized by religious leaders, according to Muhammad Jan Rasuli, the deputy governor of the Zabul province.

The unidentified Army staff sergeant was transferred out of the country on the recommendation of advisers to Gen. John Allen, the commander of the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force.

"We do not have the proper facility in Afghanistan to detain him for longer than he is being held," said Capt. John Kirby, a Pentagon spokesman.

A Defense Department official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the man was flown to Kuwait, which has the U.S. military legal infrastructure and personnel to deal with the suspect. The official was not authorized to release details to the media.

The soldier is accused of leaving the remote outpost of Camp Belambay on foot early Sunday and heading to neighboring villages outside the base.

In the villages, the soldier opened fire as he went house to house, killing nine children, three women and four men, witnesses and Afghan authorities said. The U.S. military has not confirmed the number of casualties.

Three military officials told CNN there is still no understanding of what made the suspect murder Afghan civilians, a potential capital crime that Panetta says the soldier has acknowledged.

"We don't know what made him snap. Did he see a buddy get killed? Did something happen out there in the days before this incident? We just don't know," said one military official familiar with initial investigation reports.

The soldier, who is based at Joint Base Lewis-McChord near Tacoma, Washington, belongs to the 3rd Stryker Brigade Combat Team, 2nd Infantry Division, according to a congressional source who was not authorized to speak publicly.

He was on his first tour to Afghanistan but had deployed to Iraq three times.

In 2010, he suffered a traumatic brain injury in a vehicle accident. But few details have surfaced about motive or why an infantryman would turn his gun on civilians.
Military authorities have presented a determination of probable cause to allow them to keep the sergeant in detention, an International Security Assistance Force official told CNN.

Meanwhile, an Afghan man who stole a vehicle that exploded Wednesday after he crashed it near the runway at Camp Bastion about the same time as Panetta's arrival has died from his injuries, Lt. Gen. Curtis Scaparrotti told reporters.

The Afghan was wearing a "desert utility uniform," similar to the ones coalition troops give to translators and other unarmed locals working with them, a defense official said. Coalition troops searched the man after putting out the flames and apprehending him, but they did not find an explosive device on him, according to the official. No motive or the Afghan's intent was known.

Despite some protests and local violence, the country has not erupted the way it did last month when American troops burned copies of the Quran and other Islamic religious materials. Military officials said the materials had been seized from Afghan prisoners because they contained extremist messages.



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Afghan & Iraq Vets Still Suffer In Silence From PTSD: "Happy New Year" Film Provides Insight

"The War Does NOT End When We Say Its Over. For Many The War Just Begins. To All The Veterans. Thank You For Your Service."
Patrick Kennedy


Via a Mandatory Draft I want EVERY Federal Gov't Official including Congress Members & Pentagon Officials, to immediately allow their Adult Sons & Daughters to fight in the Afghan War to help Defend Karzai's (Afghan President) Corrupt Government, then tell me its Wise Foreign Policy” for U.S. Troops to remain in that region of the world.

War Is Hell!

God Bless Our Men & Women Who Serve This Country Via the U.S. Military!





The movie ‘Happy New Year’ depicts how war vets deal with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder


For many, the issue of post traumatic stress disorder among war veterans is an uncomfortable one, even taboo. But that hasn’t stopped writer/director K. Lorrel Manning from tackling its complexities in the movie, Happy New Year.

“A lot of men and women are suffering in silence,” said Manning. “It takes tragedies like what happened in Afghanistan for people to start talking about it.”

Indeed, the massacre of 16 Afghan civilians allegedly at the hands of a U.S. soldier is forcing a public dialogue. Manning is hoping his movie can keep the momentum going.

The Directors Guild of America in Manhattan is hosting a special benefit screening of Happy New Year Thursday. Proceeds will fund a PTSD facility in Israel.

The movie, filmed at the Bronx Psychiatric Center, follows two friends who served together in Iraq who are reunited at a veterans’ facility on New Year’s Eve.

The idea came to Manning over time but started in 2004 when he read the book, “Purple Hearts: Back from Iraq.”

“I wasn’t really following the war effort at that point but I couldn’t put this book down,” he said. “It changed my life.”

Later, while doing another project in Chicago, he met a police officer who was an Iraq war veteran, and their conversations lit a spark.

Manning wrote a one-act play and asked his friend Michael Cuomo to play the lead role.

That play evolved into a short film, then the opportunity came to make a feature-length film.

Neither Manning nor Cuomo have served in the military. To tell the story accurately, they spent nine months interviewing 80 veterans from various wars.

To prepare for his role as Staff Sgt. Cole Lewis, Cuomo spent four weeks in a simulated boot camp with a drill instructor and used a wheelchair for a month (his character is paralyzed from the waist down).

“I would wheel around the city at night, kind of incognito,” he said. “I wanted to feel what it was like to see the world from that position and feel how the world sees you.”

While the subject matter may be difficult, even off-putting for some, Cuomo believes there are people willing to put aside their personal politics and focus on the humanity in the story.

“The idea of thinking that your life is heading in a certain direction, then experiencing something catastrophic that changes your course, and how you deal with that, is a dynamic I think anyone can relate to,” he said.

Happy New Year has been well received at 16 film festivals nationwide, picking up some notable endorsements along the way.

Among its fans is retired Army Col. Jack Jacobs, who received the Congressional Medal of Honor for his heroism in Vietnam.

“I’m a career soldier so I’m invariably not happy with war movies,” he said. “(But) I was absolutely enraptured by Happy New Year because the characters seemed so real. I knew all of them.

“It’s a really moving piece,” Jacobs continued. “It’s hard to say you enjoyed something that actually causes you a little bit of pain, but I absolutely enjoyed it.”

For more information about the Happy New Year screening, call (212) 586-4034.


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Sources: AP, NY Daily News, Russia Today, Wikipedia, Youtube, Google Maps

Obama Vows Punishment For Soldier Who Killed Afghan Civilians; Anti-American Sentiment Increases

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Today during a Press Conference Pres. Obama denounced the recent Afghan Civilian Killings & Vowed the Responsible U.S. Soldier will Pay. Dear God Help Us!

The Taliban is now threatening to Behead Several U.S. Soldiers currently serving in Afghanistan in Retaliation for the 16 Afghan Civilians Killed last Weekend.

I hope Pres. Obama is NOT choosing to Pander to War Hungry GOP Lawmakers regarding bringing our Troops out of a Corrupt Country where Anti-American Sentiment is Increasing Daily.

And….

Via a Mandatory Draft I want EVERY Federal Gov't Official including Congress Members & Pentagon Officials, to immediately allow their Adult Sons & Daughters to fight in the Afghan War to help Defend Karzai's (Afghan President) Corrupt Government, then tell me its Wise Foreign Policy” for U.S. Troops to remain in that region of the world.


War Is Hell!

Attention Everyone!

Please Don't Bash U.S. Military Personnel Currently Serving To Defend Our Country.
Those SAME Members of the U.S. Military You are choosing to Blast & Criticize, are the SAME Military Personnel Working Hard each day to Protect You & Defending Your Rights as an American Citizen.

So unless You Have EVER Served in the U.S. Military Or Unless You have members of Your Immediate Family Who served in the U.S. Military, Please Refrain from Criticizing members of the U.S. Military.

Especially U.S. Soldiers who have been Deployed Multiple times.

Have you EVER served in the U.S. Military?
Have you EVER completed Basic Training?
Have you EVER served in a Combat Zone?
Have you EVER been Shot at by Iraq or Afghanistan Citizens?
Have you EVER suffered a Brain Injury or PTSD as a result of serving in Iraq or Afghanistan?

If your response is "NO" to those questions, than why are you complaining about the Actions of U.S. Soldiers currently serving in Afghanistan?

I have a Husband who retired from the U.S. Army after 23 Years of Active Duty Service.
He served in Vietnam & Saudi.

My husband personally witnessed 2 of his Friends getting their heads Blown Off by the Vietcong.
Witnessing such Tragedies Still affects him years later because he is a Human Being.
And during his time in Vietnam my husband was Injured.

My Father Served in the U.S. Army during War time.
My Uncles & Cousins served in the U.S. Army, Air Force, Navy & Marines.
Now my Son & his Fiancee’ are also Serving in the U.S. Army.

I am Tired of Arrogant People, Especially Arrogant BLACK Men & Women, who NEVER served One day Defending this Country, Criticizing Members of our Armed Services.

I am also Tired of Politicians from both sides of the Aisle, using Our U.S. Military Personnel as Pawns to win Elections.

If Your Religion disavows War or Military Service, I respect Your Decision NOT to Serve in the U.S. Military.
But please don’t use Your Religion as an Excuse to Bash or look down upon our Brave Men & Women who choose to Defend this Country via U.S. Military Service.

I Don’t Condone the type of Violence which took place last weekend when that Army Sergeant Killed 16 Afghan Civilians but who are we to Judge?

Who are we to Judge?

NONE of us except GOD, the U.S. Army & that Army Sergeant knows what really happened or what that Man has experienced during each of his Deployments to Iraq & Afghanistan.

Since he was Suffering from a Brain Injury why was he Still being Allowed to Serve or why was he Still being Deployed to another Dangerous War Zone?

I can bet he was either BLACK or Latino!
I could be Wrong but in this instance I don’t think I am.

BLACK & Latino Soldiers are Often Deployed more frequently to Combat Zones than WHITE Soldiers.

For BLACKS & Latinos serving in the U.S. Military, Racial Discrimination is Still a Major Issue!

Now Add Racial Discrimination to the Stress of trying to Stay Alive while serving in a War Zone.

So unless You plan on Immediately Enlisting into the U.S. Military & Defending the United States Of America (Your Current Home), then please take that Anti-Military Sentiment Somewhere else!
I didn’t Stutter.





Obama: Killing Afghans as serious as killing Americans


President Barack Obama on Tuesday said he viewed the killing of 16 Afghan civilians, allegedly by a U.S. soldier, as seriously as if those killed had been Americans.
"The U.S. takes this as seriously as if it were our own citizens and our own children who were murdered," Obama said at the White House.

Obama said he was directing the Pentagon to do a very thorough investigation of the weekend killings. He said the inquiry would "follow the facts" wherever they lead, and that anyone found responsible would be prosecuted fully. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta has said the death penalty is possible if the soldier is convicted.

Earlier Tuesday thousands of people took to the streets in eastern Afghanistan to protest the killings, burning an effigy of Obama and calling for the killer to be tried in Afghanistan.

Demonstrators in the city of Jalalabad chanted "Death to America -- Death to Obama" and blocked the main highway to Afghanistan's capital, Kabul, Britain's Daily Telegraph reported.

"Jihad (holy war) is the only way to get the invading Americans out of Afghanistan," one banner read, according to the newspaper.

The demonstrators also demanded that President Hamid Karzai reject plans to sign a strategic pact with Washington that would allow U.S. Advisers & Possibly Special Forces to remain remain beyond a 2014 deadline for foreign combat troops to leave Afghanistan.

Meanwhile, militants attacked an Afghan government delegation that was visiting the site of the killings, the BBC reported.

"I can confirm that the Taliban have launched an attack from several directions against a government delegation," a senior official told the BBC. "At this stage, our forces are returning fire.''

Nine children and three women were among those killed in the massacre. According to reports, a 38-year-old staff sergeant had left his base in Panjwai district early on Sunday and broke into the victim's homes. Some of the bodies were burned.

The soldier had no history of behavioral problems but had been treated for traumatic brain injury after a previous deployment to Iraq, senior U.S. defense officials told NBC News.

U.S. officials rushed to draw a line between the shooting over the weekend and ongoing efforts of a U.S. force of around 90,000, and have been bracing themselves for reprisals as Afghans weary of the decade-old Western military presence vent their anger.

The Afghan Taliban threatened on Tuesday to behead U.S. troops in revenge for the massacre.

"The Islamic Emirate once again warns the American animals that the mujahedeen will avenge them, and with the help of Allah will kill and behead your sadistic murderous soldiers," Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said in an emailed statement, using the term with which the Islamist group describes itself.


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Sources: CBS News, CNN, MSNBC, NBC News, Google Maps

Leon Panetta Says U.S. Soldier Could Face Death Penalty: Afghan Shooting Massacre

Soldier could face death penalty in Afghan killings, Panetta says


The U.S. Army soldier accused of killing 16 Afghan men, women and children in a house-to-house shooting rampage could face the death penalty, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said.

Panetta spoke to reporters as he flew to the Central Asian nation of Kyrgyzstan for high-level talks Tuesday.

Hundreds of Afghans took to the streets Tuesday to protest the killings as the Taliban threatened to behead "Americans anywhere in the country."

An American sergeant is suspected of shooting nine children, three women and four men in two villages near his combat outpost in southern Afghanistan on Sunday.

He turned himself in after the killings, the military said. The Army's Criminal Investigation Command is leading the investigation. The suspect has not been charged.

In Jalalabad, near the border with Pakistan, "hundreds of protesters, many of whom are university students, have taken to the streets," said Ahmad Zaii Abdulzai, a spokesman for Nangarhar province.

He said there had not been any damage or casualties from the protests, but the Jalalabad-Kabul highway was closed to traffic.

"We are in the process of trying to reopen," he said.

And an Afghan official said he heard gunshots and grenades being launched Tuesday while a delegation of top officials visited one of the villages where the shootings took place.

"While we were in the village of Alokozai for a funeral, praying for a martyr killed in the massacre, we heard close-range, small-arms fire, followed by two rocket-propelled grenades," said Haji Agha Lali, a member of Kandahar's provincial council.

"According to my information, two to three Afghan security forces have been injured," he said.

He said high-level Afghan officials, including President Hamid Karzai's brother, a minister and a deputy minister, were all attending the funeral and may have been the target of the firing.

Another villager in the area said he heard a large explosion followed by gunfire.
Leaders from across Afghanistan's fragmented political terrain have expressed anger and outrage over the attack in the district of Panjwai in Kandahar province.

Karzai has condemned the weekend bloodshed as "unforgivable." Afghanistan's parliament has demanded a public trial for the suspect, and the Afghan Taliban have described U.S. troops as "sick-minded American savages" and vowed to exact revenge.
In a new statement Tuesday, the Taliban said the group would take revenge "by killing and beheading Americans anywhere in the country."

There are fears that Sunday's killings could reignite the anger that led to deadly riots directed at international forces last month over the burning of Qurans by U.S. troops. That was one of a string of incidents involving American forces that have strained ties between the United States and Afghanistan.

U.S. commanders were forced to condemn a video of a squad of Marines urinating on bodies in January, and several soldiers -- from Joint Base Lewis-McChord in Washington state, like the suspect in Sunday's shooting -- were charged with taking part in a rogue "kill squad."

Sunday's killings have brought a deluge of high-level statements from Washington expressing shock, sadness and insistence that the U.S. mission in Afghanistan would stay on course.

As he set out for a trip to the Middle East on Monday, Panetta said the United States and its NATO allies "seem to get tested almost every other day." But he added, "It is important that, all of us, United States, Afghanistan, the (NATO-led) forces all stick to the strategy that we've laid out."

"War is hell," he said. "These kind of events and incidents are going to take place. They've taken place in any war. They're terrible events. This is not the first of those events, and they probably won't be the last."

The still-unidentified suspect in the attack served three tours of duty in Iraq before being deployed to Afghanistan, said Gen. John Allen, the U.S. and NATO commander in Afghanistan. A U.S. military official, who asked not to be named because he was talking about an ongoing investigation, said the suspect is an Army staff sergeant who arrived in Afghanistan in January.

During the suspect's last deployment, in 2010, he was riding in a vehicle that rolled over in a wreck, according to a senior Defense Department official, who also spoke on condition of anonymity. The sergeant was diagnosed with a traumatic brain injury after the wreck but was found fit for duty after treatment, the official said.


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Sources: CBS News, CNN, US Navy Seals.com, Wikipedia, Google Maps

Obama vs Afghan War Strategy: Exit? Yes But NOT Yet!

Obama: No "rush for the exits" in Afghanistan


President Obama said Monday the United States should not stay in Afghanistan any longer than is absolutely necessary -- but added that he does not want to "rush for the exits" in the wake of a shooting rampage by a U.S. soldier who allegedly killed 16 Afghan civilians, including nine children.

"I think it's important for us just to make sure that we are not ... in Afghanistan longer than we need to be," Mr. Obama said in an interview with Denver CBS affiliate KCNC television.

In a separate interview with Pittsburgh CBS affiliate KDKA, Mr Obama said, "it's important for us to make sure that we get out in responsible way, so that we don't end up having to go back in...but what we don't want to do is to do it in a way that is just a rush for the exits."

Mr. Obama's comments come as U.S. officials continue to investigate what happened over the weekend in Afghanistan. A U.S. staff sergeant is accused of leaving his Belembai base near Kandahar and shooting civilians in nearby villagers as they were sleeping.

The administration and its allies say the shooting will not change the timetable for the United States and its NATO allies to hand over security control to the Afghans by the end of 2014.

The United States is expected to reduce its troop force to about 68,000 by the end of September from about 91,000 in Afghanistan now.

The attack comes on the heels of another incident that caused increased hostility toward the U.S. presence in Afghanistan -- the burning of Muslim holy books last month. That incident led to a week of riots and attacks that left 30 people dead, including six U.S. soldiers.

"Obviously what happened this weekend is absolutely heartbreaking and tragic, and I expressed directly to [Afghan] President [Hamid] Karzai how the American people feel any time innocent civilians, especially children .. are killed and for it to happen in this kind of terrible way I think we all are concerned about," Mr. Obama told KDKA.

The president stressed that removing tens of thousands of U.S. forces is logistically complicated and needs to be done "in a responsible way," using the Iraq withdrawal as model. Doing so, he said, will allow the Afghans to "protect their borders and prevent al Qaeda from coming back."

Asked if that meant he did not want to speed up the withdrawal, Mr. Obama said he is "more determined" to make sure the troops come home.

"It's been a decade, and you know, frankly, now that we've gotten [Osama] bin Laden, now that we've weakened al Qaeda, we're in a stronger position to transition than we would have been two or three years ago," Mr Obama told KDKA.

On the campaign trail, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich told CBS News the United States should leave Afghanistan as quickly as is feasible.

"My feeling is that we should leave. I think as fast as we can with safety. I think the possibility of us changing Afghan culture is virtually zero," Gingrich told congressional correspondent Nancy Cordes.


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Afghan Killings Result Of U.S. Soldier Suffering From Mental Illness & PTSD: Please Bring Troops Home!

How many more U.S. Troops have to Die or Crack Up and Commit Heinous Crimes before Pentagon Officials bring them home?




U.S. Officials Debate Speeding Afghan Pullout


The Obama administration is discussing whether to reduce American forces in Afghanistan by at least an additional 20,000 troops by 2013, reflecting a growing belief within the White House that the mission there has now reached the point of diminishing returns.

Accelerating the withdrawal of United States forces has been under consideration for weeks by senior White House officials, but those discussions are now taking place in the context of two major setbacks to American efforts in Afghanistan — the killings on Sunday of Afghan civilians attributed to a United States Army staff sergeant and the violence touched off by burning of Korans last month by American troops.

Administration officials cautioned on Monday that no decisions on additional troop cuts have been made, and in a radio interview President Obama reaffirmed his commitment to the Afghan mission in spite of the recent setbacks, warning against “a rush for the exits” amid questions about the American war strategy. “It’s important for us to make sure that we get out in a responsible way, so that we don’t end up having to go back in,” Mr. Obama said in an interview with KDKA in Pittsburgh.

Any accelerated withdrawal would face stiff opposition from military commanders, who want to keep the bulk of the remaining American troops in Afghanistan until the end of 2014, when the NATO mission in Afghanistan is supposed to end. Their resistance puts Mr. Obama in a quandary, as he balances how to hasten what is increasingly becoming a messy withdrawal while still painting a portrait of success for NATO allies and the American people.

The United States now has just under 90,000 troops in Afghanistan, with 22,000 of them due home by September. There has been no schedule set for the withdrawal of the remaining 68,000 American troops, although Mr. Obama said last year that the drawdown would continue “at a steady pace” until the United States handed over security to the Afghan forces in 2014.

At least three options are now under consideration, according to officials at the White House, the Pentagon and the State Department. One plan, backed by Thomas E. Donilon, the national security adviser, would be to announce that at least 10,000 more troops would come home by the end of December, and then 10,000 to 20,000 more by June 2013.

Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. has been pushing for a bigger withdrawal that would reduce the bulk of the troops around the same time the mission shifts to a support role, leaving behind Special Operations teams to conduct targeted raids. Mr. Biden has long said that the United States mission in Afghanistan is too broad and should focus primarily on a narrow counterterrorism mission against insurgents seeking to attack the United States.

Mr. Obama’s military commanders, meanwhile, want to maintain troops in Afghanistan as long as possible. If cuts have to be made, the commanders favor making them at the end of 2013, after the fighting season is largely finished. Any troop cuts made midyear would mean that those forces would not be available during the main fighting season, which runs from spring to early fall.

“We’ve come up with several options, but they’re back-of-the-envelope options,” said a senior military official, who said the internal discussions were just now beginning to focus on the costs, logistics and security risks of each plan.

Additional troop reductions would be consistent with a shift in mission that Mr. Obama plans to announce at a meeting of NATO members in Chicago in May. Under this plan, American troops would step away from the lead combat role to a supporting mission focused primarily on counterterrorism and training Afghan security forces. Mr. Obama will not announce the next troop reduction at the NATO meeting, aides said on Monday, but the size of the reduction will flow from the NATO decision on when to shift the mission in Afghanistan from combat to support.

In his news conference last week, Mr. Obama called the goal for the NATO meeting to make “sure that the transition is not a cliff, but that there are benchmarks and steps that are taken along the way.”

Benjamin J. Rhodes, one of the president’s senior national security advisers, said in an interview on Monday that “the trajectory we’ve set here is one of transition and Afghan sovereignty.” He added, “We have a goal here of having the Afghans move into the lead and having us steadily pulling back.”

Once the United States and its allies agree on the timing for the shift in mission —Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta has already said that it will take place as early as mid-2013 — the administration must decide exactly when the remaining 68,000 troops will come home. Already, debate there has fallen along familiar lines, according to the officials.

Gen. John R. Allen, the commander of allied forces in Afghanistan, is expected to face tough questioning on the mission and the pace of withdrawal in Congressional hearings scheduled for next week. “The campaign is sound,” General Allen said in an interview on Monday with Wolf Blitzer of CNN. “It is solid. It does not contemplate, at this time, any form of an accelerated drawdown.”

His comments were similar to those of Mr. Panetta, who told reporters on Monday while flying to Kyrgyzstan that the killings of Afghan civilians a day earlier would not undermine United States strategy in Afghanistan or speed up a planned drawdown of American troops over the next two years.

One prominent supporter of the Afghan mission, Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, warned that steep troop cuts before 2014 could jeopardize General Allen’s ability to carry out the mission. “You don’t put a man in charge of a war and undercut his ability to do his job,” Mr. Graham said in a telephone interview.

The shootings on Sunday, and the burning of the Korans, come at a time when Afghans seem increasingly uncertain about their country’s fate once the Americans withdraw. Asylum applications to other countries are at an all-time high, while passport applications have overwhelmed the Afghan Foreign Ministry’s ability to process them. More than 500 people line up outside the passport office in Kabul every morning even in the bitterest weather.

Many respected Afghans have fled the country or lost their jobs, including the head of the country’s Central Bank and the deputy head of the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission. Meanwhile, analysts say the Afghan economy appears more and more to be built on the Western aid that has enriched the country’s elite, who have taken much of the money out of the country. Cash moving through Kabul International Airport has gone up drastically in the past year, so that now about $4 billion is leaving the country, in a legitimate annual economy of about $15 billion.

Little of that is expected to be mentioned publicly at the Chicago meeting. Mr. Obama and the NATO allies, European and American officials said, must instead present a picture of success that includes the possibility of reconciliation talks with the Taliban and a NATO withdrawal that is coming only after a job well done.

“The critical issue in Chicago is for the president to make the case that the military picture is good, the insurgency has been weakened, and the Afghan security forces are ready to take over,” said Vali Nasr, a former State Department official under the Obama administration who worked on these issues. “And that reconciliation is under way.”

Mr. Obama will be discussing the NATO mission in Afghanistan when he meets with Prime Minister David Cameron of Britain on Tuesday and Wednesday. A European official said Monday that it was imperative that the United States and its NATO partners project a public face to the Afghans that while NATO troops will be leaving Afghanistan, the West will not abandon the country. “The most important thing now is the messaging,” the official said.


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Sources: AP, CBS News, CNN, Wikipedia, Google Maps

Navy Seals Killed In Afghanistan By Taliban! Osama's Revenge! (Bring Troops Home!)

Copter Downed by Taliban Fire; Elite U.S. Unit Among Dead

In the deadliest day for American forces in the nearly decade-long war in Afghanistan, insurgents shot down a Chinook transport helicopter on Saturday, killing 30 Americans, including some Navy Seal commandos from the unit that killed Osama bin Laden, as well as 8 Afghans, American and Afghan officials said.

The helicopter, on a night-raid mission in the Tangi Valley of Wardak Province, to the west of Kabul, was most likely brought down by a rocket-propelled grenade, one coalition official said.

The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack, and they could hardly have found a more valuable target: American officials said that 22 of the dead were Navy Seal commandos, including members of Seal Team 6. Other commandos from that team conducted the raid in Abbottabad, Pakistan, that killed Bin Laden in May. The officials said that those who were killed Saturday were not involved in the Pakistan mission.

President Obama offered his condolences to the families of the Americans and Afghans who died in the attack. “Their death is a reminder of the extraordinary sacrifice made by the men and women of our military and their families,” Mr. Obama said. President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan also offered his condolences to the victims’ families.

Saturday’s attack came during a surge of violence that has accompanied the beginning of a drawdown of American and NATO troops, and it showed how deeply entrenched the insurgency remains even far from its main strongholds in southern Afghanistan and along the Afghan-Pakistani border in the east. American soldiers had recently turned over the sole combat outpost in the Tangi Valley to Afghans.

Gen. Abdul Qayum Baqizoy, the police chief of Wardak, said the attack occurred around 1 a.m. Saturday after an assault on a Taliban compound in the village of Jaw-e-Mekh Zareen in the Tangi Valley. The fighting lasted at least two hours, the general said.

A spokesman for the Taliban, Zabiullah Mujahid, confirmed that insurgents had been gathering at the compound, adding that eight of them had been killed in the fighting.

The Tangi Valley traverses the border between Wardak and Logar Province, an area where security has worsened over the past two years, bringing the insurgency closer to the capital, Kabul. It is one of several inaccessible areas that have become havens for insurgents, according to operations and intelligence officers with the Fourth Brigade Combat Team, 10th Mountain Division, which patrols the area.

The mountainous region, with its steeply pitched hillsides and arid shale, laced by small footpaths and byways, has long been an area that the Taliban have used to move between Logar and Wardak, local government officials said.

Officers at a forward operating base near the valley described Tangi as one of the most troubled areas in Logar and Wardak Provinces.

“There’s a lot happening in Tangi,” said Capt. Kirstin Massey, 31, the assistant intelligence officer for Fourth Brigade Combat Team in an interview last week. “It’s a stronghold for the Taliban.”

The fighters are entirely Afghans and almost all local residents, Captain Massey said, noting that “We don’t capture any fighters who are non-Afghans.”

The redoubts in these areas pose the kind of problems the military faced last year in similarly remote areas of Kunar Province, forcing commanders to weigh the mission’s value given the cost in soldiers’ lives and dollars spent in places where the vast majority of the insurgents are local residents who resent both the NATO presence and the Afghan government.

The dilemma is that if NATO military forces do not stay, the areas often quickly slip back under Taliban influence, if not outright control, and the Afghan National Security Forces do not have the ability yet to rout them.

When the Fourth Brigade Combat Team handed over its only combat outpost in the Tangi Valley to Afghan security forces in April, the American commander for the area said that as troops began to withdraw, he wanted to focus his forces on troubled areas that had larger populations. But he pledged that coalition forces would continue to carry out raids there to stem insurgent activity.

“As we lose U.S. personnel, we have to concentrate on the greater populations,” said Lt. Col. Thomas S. Rickard, the commander of 10th Mountain Division’s Task Force Warrior, which has responsibility for the area that includes Tangi. “We are going to continue to hunt insurgents in Tangi and prevent them from having a safe haven.”

Within days of the transition, the Taliban raised their flag near the outpost, said a NATO official familiar with the situation. Afghan security forces remained in the area but were no match for the Taliban, the official said.

Local officials in Wardak said that residents of the Tangi Valley disliked the fighting in the area, and that though they had fallen under the Taliban’s sway, the residents were not willing allies.

“They do not like having military in that area — no matter whether they are Taliban or foreigners,” said Hajji Mohammad Hazrat Janan, the chairman of the Wardak provincial council. “When an operation takes place in their village,” he said, “their sleep gets disrupted by the noise of helicopters and by their military operation. And also they don’t like the Taliban, because when they attack, then they go and seek cover in their village, and they are threatened by the Taliban.”

However, when local residents are hurt by the NATO soldiers, then, he said, they are willing to help the insurgents.

This was the second helicopter to be shot down by insurgents in the past two weeks. On July 25, a Chinook was shot down in Kunar Province, injuring two people on board. Of 15 crashes or forced landings this year, those two were the only confirmed cases where hostile fire was involved.

Before Saturday, the biggest single-day loss of life for the American military in Afghanistan came on June 28, 2005, during an operation in Kunar Province when a Chinook helicopter carrying Special Operations troops was shot down as it tried to provide reinforcements to forces trapped in heavy fighting. Sixteen members of a Special Operations unit were killed in the crash, and three more were killed in fighting on the ground.

Although the number of civilian deaths in Afghanistan has steadily risen in the past year, with a 15 percent increase in the first half of 2011 over the same period last year, NATO deaths had been declining — decreasing 20 percent in the first six months of 2011 compared with 2010.


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Sources: CNN, MSNBC, NY Times, White House, Youtube, Google Maps

Gen. Martin Dempsey Appointed New Joint Chiefs Of Staff Chairman

What Better Person To Help Transition Our Proud Men & Women Currently Serving In Uniform From A War State Of Mind In Afghanistan To Serving In A Non-Combat Environment, Than General Martin Dempsey.

Like His Professional Predecessor Gen. Colin Powell, Gen. Dempsey Loves Being A Soldier, Loves Serving His Country, Loves Being A Leader.

Today President Barack Obama Once Again Made An Excellent Decision As It Relates To Keeping Our Nation Safe.

First He Appoints General Petraeus To Head The CIA, Next He Appoints Leon Panetta To Head The Pentagon & Now General Martin Dempsey Has Been Tapped As The New Joint Chiefs Of Staff Chairman.

I'd Say Such Intelligent Decisions Proves Pres. Obama Really Knows What He's Doing When It Comes To Selecting The Right Kind Of Leadership.

"Iron Sharpens Iron!"

i.e., Great Leaders Appoint & Associate With Great Leaders!

Congrats Gen. Dempsey!

VOTE OBAMA IN 2012!

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Obama nominates Army head to serve as new Joint Chiefs chairman

President Barack Obama on Monday nominated Gen. Martin Dempsey, the relatively new Army chief of staff, to be the next chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

The term of the current chairman, Adm. Michael Mullen, ends in September.

Obama also nominated Adm. James Winnefeld, the current head of the U.S. Northern Command, to serve as vice chairman. He tapped Gen. Ray Odierno to replace Dempsey as the Army's chief of staff.

The president, speaking at the White House, urged the Senate to confirm the three men "as swiftly as possible" in order to help ensure a "seamless" Pentagon transition.

Obama praised Dempsey as one of the country's most "respected and combat-tested generals."

"I expect him to push all our forces to keep adapting and innovating," Obama said. "We will provide what it takes to achieve our objectives in the current fight."

Outgoing Defense Secretary Robert Gates released a statement praising Dempsey, Winnefeld, and Odierno for having "excelled in key command and staff roles" and possessing "the right mix of intellectual heft, moral courage, and strategic vision."

If confirmed by the Senate, Dempsey would be in the key position of being Obama's senior military adviser overseeing the drawdown of troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. He would also work with incoming Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, who still needs to be confirmed by the Senate, in establishing priorities for cutting defense spending.

Dempsey has extensive combat experience. He served as the commander of the 1st Armored Division in Baghdad in 2003, and then helped train Iraqi security forces in a subsequent tour of duty in Iraq. He also has served as acting commander of the U.S. Central Command overseeing U.S. military operations in the Middle East, Persian Gulf and Central Asia.

The selection of Dempsey is unusual partly because he took over as head of the Army only on April 11. In that brief period of time, Dempsey has earned strong praise for what is considered to be his outgoing personality. Among other things, the general receives a list of soldiers both in the United States and overseas every week and calls them to get their direct opinions on life in the Army.

He spent last Friday in Washington meeting with children who have lost parents and other relatives in war-time military service.

He has also gained attention for his long-standing habit of beginning some of his public speaking events by singing songs such as "New York, New York." On his Facebook page he recently asked troops to offer their suggestions for music he could play at events where he is speaking.

Dempsey's sense of humor has opened him up for some ribbing as well, like at the ceremony when he took command of the Army.

"His rise to this great height is yet another one of those classic American immigrant success stories," said Army Secretary John McHugh during official remarks. "One can only imagine how different his life might have been had his family not decided to leave New Jersey and move across the river to New York state."

Gen. James Cartwright, a four-star Marine who currently is vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs, had been the perceived front runner to replace Mullen. But in a 30-minute meeting with Obama before the president left for his recent trip to Europe, Cartwright was told he would not get the job, according to a Defense Department official with direct knowledge of the meeting.

The official declined to be identified because of the sensitivity of discussing White House personnel meetings involving the president.

Cartwright is now expected to submit his retirement papers and conclude his term as vice chairman as scheduled in early August.

Cartwright had long been considered a White House favorite, but had run afoul of other senior officers inside the Pentagon who felt he more than once went behind their backs in offering the president military recommendations and advice on a range of issues, including lower troop levels in Afghanistan.

The Defense Department official who is familiar with Cartwright's thinking says the general was aware of these criticisms, and only offered recommendations when asked by the president.

"There was an impression created he wasn't a team player," said the official, who was offering a defense of Cartwright's actions

"Gen. Cartwright never believed he was a deputy. He believed he had a legal and moral obligation to give the president his best military advice," the source said. "He is not obligated to provide the same advice as everybody else."

The official acknowledged the widespread view many had, however, that Cartwright plays his cards close to the vest inside the Pentagon and often shared little with colleagues about his real thinking.

The official also noted that neither Gates nor Mullen had recommended Cartwright for the job as chairman, which meant his nomination by the White House would have been difficult to justify to Congress.

Spokesmen for both declined to publicly comment on any aspect of the chairmanship issue.

Cartwright had also been the subject of an investigation by the department's inspector general over whistleblower allegations of improper conduct with a junior female officer who fell asleep intoxicated in his hotel room during a business trip. He was cleared of wrongdoing by Navy Secretary Ray Mabus, but the official said Cartwright felt he was the still the subject of a "whispering campaign" after that.


Sources: Army Tradoc, CNN, MSNBC, Wikipedia, Youtube