They Sent Me to Distant Lands to Fight Against Muslims ... Then I Became One

.Along the way, I ate Burger King in Peshawar, developed a debilitating drug habit and caught a 3-year prison sentence.

Mike's attraction to Islam dates to 2001, when his Afghan interpreter gave him a Quran. Mike had a deep respect for the spirit of those he fought and wanted to better understand what it was about their belief system that roused such a fierce dedication to their cause.

Last month, after a year of one-on-one study with Imam Sabur, Mike made his shihada at the Kemble Street Mosque in Utica, N.Y. He is now officially an adherent of Islam.

As a practicing Muslim, his life has become a virtual prayer. Five times a day, he ritualistically washes his body and kneels to pray facing the Kaaba in Mecca. (The first time, he used a compass and marked the direction with tape on his floor.)

"Islam," the imam explained to me, "is a way of life more than a religion. It teaches you how to do everything, and everything becomes an act of worship."

Mike agrees, allowing with some amusement that the structure is both reassuring and familiar for a soldier, "but the military isn't nearly as strict as Islam."

Every day, he downloads the prayer schedule off the mosque Web site. Prayers are timed according to the hours of sunrise and sunset, and on some winter mornings, that means getting up at 4:30.

But Mike rarely sleeps more than a few hours anyway. He has found that the exhaustion produced by long hours of concentrated work seems to keep his night terrors under control, so he "practices avoidance," letting his schoolwork regularly keep him up well past midnight.

Mike has a 4.0 grade-point average at State University of New York, and plans to get a Ph.D. in trauma research and counseling when he graduates.

He is also a convicted felon who suffers from a terrible post-traumatic stress injury.

If Uncle Sam were to use his finger like a Ouija board pointer searching out a U.S. Army poster boy, it just might stop on Mike.

He's tall, fair-haired, handsome, stands with a posture that suggests military training, but without rigidity, and he speaks with a polite confidence, intelligence and insight that made him a natural leader when he was in the service and makes him a campus and community leader now.

Mike was with the first wave of Americans into Afghanistan in 2001, and then, 15 months later, with the first wave into Iraq. Like so many combat veterans, he quite enjoys talking about the funny-crazy memories he brought home.

Like when someone discovered that there was a Burger King in Peshawar, Pakistan, over the border with Afghanistan.

If there wasn't a lot of traffic in the Khyber Pass, he and his unit could make the trip from Jalalabad in half an hour. Like schoolboys playing chicken, they'd go – 12 guys in three vehicles bristling with guns.

"We would just run in and grab our burgers, scarf them down, and get back out of Pakistan. If we would have run into somebody, we would have been massacred," he admits sheepishly. "But it was so good to have a Whopper."

But he won't go near the bad stuff that happened. He has learned that indulging someone else's curiosity predictably brings on terrible dreams.

"My body," he says with painful understatement, "blows everything out of proportion."

The imam has helped.

"There is just something about Imam Sabur," Mike says. "He has taught me to trust him."

It probably helps that the imam is a veteran and recently retired after a 20-year career at New York State's Department of Corrections.

"He knows that nothing he might say is going to shock me," Sabur told me. "I just listen and remind him that he may have done wrong in the past, and he surely will make mistakes in the future, but God is perfect, the rest of us aren't."

Mike enlisted in the Army in 1998. His first semester in college hadn't gone all that well, and he had a bunch of uncles who had told him the military would grow him up and give him a little discipline.

They were all Army or Marine veterans, and they told stories about exploits, adventures and camaraderie, all punctuated with: "and then we got drunk." They made it sound better than college. But none of his uncles had ever been to war.

After his first tour, Mike would have said his uncles were right. He was stationed in Korea and Bosnia, visited 27 other countries, went to jump school, and while he learned that he hated parachuting, he got a pretty badge for his uniform. He also got awards and affirmations, he made E-5 in 2 1/2, and he says he enjoyed every minute.

A month after his contract was up, the Twin Towers went down and he re-enlisted.

Mike wanted to be a Special Forces medic, but instead they made him a civil affairs specialist, which turned out to be "nothing but glorified social work."

His job was to do needs assessments in local villages, consulting with village elders about where schools, clinics and hospitals needed to be built, and organizing their construction.

"I was the one who would go in, smiling and happy: ‘Look, we can get you guys schools.' "

But he was not immune to the irony of living in an old royal palace in Jalalabad, which he says was "very nice before we blew it up," or in Fallujah, before "the Marines came through and blew that up," and then making a show of gifting the locals with replacements for what the Americans had destroyed.

"They didn't like us as much after we blew things up," he told me with a wry smile. "We had to do a lot more building to make the Army look good."

Civil affairs, however, was not what Mike had re-upped for. He wanted retribution, and he "wanted to do the fun stuff -- kick in doors and fight war."

So he doubled as an 18 Bravo weapons specialist, joining a team that was doing the actual fighting. But only at night. If he went out with them in the daylight, where his face and his patches could be recognized, it would be much harder to "come back the next day and try to put a smile on 'em."

But as it turned out, he couldn't do the fun stuff with impunity. About four months into his first tour, he started having intolerable nightmares.

The unit medic gave him Valium, telling him, "If you're not sleeping, we can't use you."

He started out taking one a night, but after a month he was taking three or four just to get to sleep.

And drinking heavily as well. They all did, in part for the artificial courage, but also because alcohol was an excuse for these warriors to share their horror.

"We'd do a drug house or something, and whatever happened, when we came back, before we cleaned our weapons or anything, somebody would have a bottle of liquor, and we would talk everything through.

"This is among a bunch of guys that normally, if you're sober, aren't prone to expressing their feelings easily, especially with other men."

It was when he got to Iraq that he started doing heavy drugs.

"With American money, you can walk into any pharmacy, and they will give you what you want. I had someone write Oxycontin and Valium on a piece of paper in Arabic, but after the first few times, they just knew me."

Of course, he came home addicted to the drugs and dependent on the alcohol. The Army sent him to its Alcohol and Drug Abuse Prevention and Control Program when he came home.

He sat there for eight weeks in bored, defiant silence, celebrated his graduation with a 12-pack and took his "honorable discharge with a bar to re-enlistment due to medical reasons" pretty much straight to jail.

With one painful detour: an attempted suicide. He took all the meds the VA had given him and anything else he could get his hands on.
"They didn't kill me," he told me matter-of-factly, "so I just kept on drinking and getting heavier into drugs."

Mike got himself a generous one- to three-year bid in state prison for possession -- generous because even though he was holding a lot of illegal substances when he was arrested, the sentencing judge took his PTSD diagnosis into consideration.

After he sobered up, he spent his time in prison reading the Quran, and he began attending services. When he got out, he made a beeline for the Kemble Street Mosque and asked for the imam.

Although the spiritual leader has become his primary mentor and support, Mike also has a counselor at SUNY and another at the VA. When he first got out of the Army, he thought he could handle things on his own.

"I went downhill real fast," he recalls, "and it didn't come out good. If that happens again," he told me earnestly, "I need somebody right there, and I don't know if the imam could handle everything that would happen."

Another breakdown might cost him his Ph.D. He knows that as a convicted felon, he will have to go "an extra 10 steps to get there."
When he applied for transfer to a four-year college, some of his interviews were more like interrogations. He had to provide convincing answers to questions such as, "What makes you think you're not going to backslide?"

And when one of his classmates opined that felons are a waste of social service resources because they will never change, Mike just got up and left the classroom. But he came back -- he was "too scared about not getting A's" to make an issue of the slight.

But "felon" isn't the only label Mike carries -- he is also a veteran. Although veterans may appear to be the flavor of the week in many circles, the caricature of the troubled, addicted, angry misfit is often close beneath the surface. Faculty and students alike often slip into blaming soldiers for the policies of the government and military.

Steve Darman, who teaches sociology at SUNY and is at the epicenter of activism on behalf of Oneida County's veterans, says that "professors and students who make facile remarks about the wars and how misguided and/or stupid they are really piss these guys off -- and not necessarily because they are pro-war."

Pro or con, right or wrong, our veterans have learned something about what war is really like, what it really does to people, something that those of us who have never been might find useful if we're serious about pushing back against our nation's militaristic policies and institutions.

Comparing the surprise attack of Pearl Harbor with that of the Twin Towers, Michael Hayden, who in 2001 was director of the National Security Agency, said, "perhaps it was more of a failure of imagination than last time."

Certainly, the vast majority of Americans failed to imagine what the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq would really cost. Author Robert Lifton has said that the task of our times to "imagine the real."

Our veterans might be able to help with that, if we are willing to listen. Having been in both wars, Mike is convinced that, "we will never win either, because Muslims have more fighting spirit than any Americans."

Imagine that.
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Very Bad News: Afghanistan's Bagram Air Base Will Be Obama's Guantanamo

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By Stephen Foley, Independent UK.

The Afghan air base is to undergo a $60 million expansion, allowing it to hold five times as many prisoners as remain at Gitmo.

Less than a month after signing an executive order to close the Guantanamo Bay prison camp, President Barack Obama has quietly agreed to keep denying the right to trial to hundreds more terror suspects held at a makeshift camp in Afghanistan that human rights lawyers have dubbed "Obama's Guantanamo."

In a single-sentence answer filed with a Washington court, the administration dashed hopes that it would immediately rip up Bush-era policies that have kept more than 600 prisoners in legal limbo and in rudimentary conditions at the Bagram air base, north of Kabul.

Now, human rights groups say they are becoming increasingly concerned that the use of extra-judicial methods in Afghanistan could be extended rather than curtailed under the new U.S. administration. The air base is about to undergo a $60 million expansion that will double its size, meaning it can house five times as many prisoners as remain at Guantanamo.

Apart from staff at the International Red Cross, human rights groups and journalists have been barred from Bagram, where former prisoners say they were tortured by being shackled to the ceiling of isolation cells and deprived of sleep.

The base became notorious when two Afghan inmates died after the use of such techniques in 2002, and although treatment and conditions have been improved since then, the Red Cross issued a formal complaint to the U.S. government in 2007 about harsh treatment of some prisoners held in isolation for months.

While the majority of the estimated 600 prisoners are believed to be Afghan, an unknown number -- perhaps several dozen -- have been picked up from other countries.

One of the detainees who passed through the Afghan prison was Binyam Mohamed, the British resident who is expected to return to the UK this week after his release from Guantanamo Bay. Mr. Mohamed's lawyer, Clive Stafford Smith, head of a legal charity called Reprieve, called President Obama's strategy "the Bagram bait and switch," where the administration was trumpeting the closure of a camp housing 242 prisoners, while scaling up the Bagram base to house 1,100 more.

Torture in Bagram Air Base

"Guantanamo Bay was a diversionary tactic in the 'War on Terror'," said the lawyer. "Totting up the prisoners around the world -- held by the U.S. in Iraq, Afghanistan, Djibouti, the prison ships and Diego Garcia, or held by U.S. proxies in Jordan, Egypt and Morocco -- the numbers dwarf Guantanamo. There are still perhaps as many as 18,000 people in legal black holes. Mr. Obama should perhaps be offered more than a month to get the American house in order. However, this early sally from the administration underlines another message: it is far too early for human rights advocates to stand on the USS Abraham Lincoln and announce, 'Mission Accomplished.'"

Four non-Afghan detainees at Bagram are fighting a legal case in Washington to be given the same access to the U.S. court system that was granted to the inmates of Guantanamo Bay by a controversial Supreme Court decision last year. The Bush administration was fighting their claim.

Two days into his presidency, Mr. Obama promised to shut Guantanamo within a year in an effort to restore America's moral standing in the world and to prosecute the struggle against terrorism "in a manner that is consistent with our values and our ideals." But on the same day, the judge in the Bagram case said that the order "indicated significant changes to the government's approach to the detention, and review of detention, of individuals currently held at Guantanamo Bay" and that "a different approach could impact the court's analysis of certain issues central to the resolution" of the Bagram cases as well. Judge John Bates asked the new administration if it wanted to "refine" its stance.

The response, filed by the Department of Justice late on Friday, came as a crushing blow to human rights campaigners. "Having considered the matter, the government adheres to its previously articulated position," it said.

Tina Foster, executive director of the International Justice Network, the New York human rights organisation representing the detainees, warned last night that "by leaving Bagram open, the administration turns the closure of Guantanamo into essentially a hollow and symbolic gesture."

She said: "Without reconsidering the underlying policy, which has led to the abuses at Abu Ghraib and the indefinite detention of hundreds of people all these years, then we are simply returning to the status quo. The exact same thing that had the world up in arms has been going on at Bagram since even before Guantanamo.

"People have been tortured to the point that they have died; it is a rallying cry for those who oppose the U.S. actions in Afghanistan; it is not strategic for the U.S.; and, more importantly, holding people indefinitely, regardless of who they are and regardless of the facts, is completely inconsistent with everything we stand for as a country."

The Department of Justice would only say that the legal briefs in the Washington case "speak for themselves." It says Bagram is a special case because, unlike Guantanamo, it is sited within a theatre of war.

Mr. Obama has pushed out the wider questions about the U.S. policy on detaining terror suspects and supporters of the Taliban in Afghanistan until the summer, ordering a review that will take six months to complete.

The administration is weighing the likely increase in prisoners from an expanded fight against the Taliban in Afghanistan and Pakistan, against the international perception that it is embedding extra-judicial detention into its policies for years to come.
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Worse than my darkest nightmare

As I gain my freedom, I am determined that neither those who remain in detention, nor their abusers, are forgotten

I hope you will understand that after everything I have been through, I am neither physically nor mentally capable of facing the media on the moment of my arrival back to Britain. Please forgive me if I make a simple statement through my lawyer. I hope to be able to do better in days to come, when I am on the road to recovery.

I have been through an experience that I never thought to encounter in my darkest nightmares. Before this ordeal, "torture" was an abstract word to me. I could never have imagined that I would be its victim. It is still difficult for me to believe that I was abducted, hauled from one country to the next, and tortured in medieval ways – all orchestrated by the United States government.

While I want to recover, and put it all as far in my past as I can, I also know I have an obligation to the people who still remain in those torture chambers. My own despair was greatest when I thought that everyone had abandoned me. I have a duty to make sure that nobody else is forgotten.

I am grateful that, in the end, I was not simply left to my fate. I am grateful to my lawyers and other staff at Reprieve, and to Lt Col Yvonne Bradley, who fought for my freedom. I am grateful to the members of the British Foreign Office who worked for my release. And I want to thank people around Britain who wrote to me in Guantánamo Bay to keep my spirits up, as well as to the members of the media who tried to make sure that the world knew what was going on. I know I would not be home in Britain today, if it were not for everyone's support. Indeed, I might not be alive at all.

I wish I could say that it is all over, but it is not. There are still 241 Muslim prisoners in Guantánamo. Many have long since been cleared even by the US military, yet cannot go anywhere as they face persecution. For example, Ahmed bel Bacha lived here in Britain, and desperately needs a home. Then there are thousands of other prisoners held by the US elsewhere around the world, with no charges, and without access to their families.

And I have to say, more in sadness than in anger, that many have been complicit in my own horrors over the past seven years. For myself, the very worst moment came when I realised in Morocco that the people who were torturing me were receiving questions and materials from British intelligence. I had met with British intelligence in Pakistan. I had been open with them. Yet the very people who I had hoped would come to my rescue, I later realised, had allied themselves with my abusers.

I am not asking for vengeance; only that the truth should be made known, so that nobody in the future should have to endure what I have endured. Thank you.

This is the statement issued by Binyam Mohamed on his return to the UK

No New Troops To Afghanistan

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March on the Pentagon - March 21
March on Wall Street - April 3 & 4

No New Troops To Afghanistan
End War and Occupation
Bring all the Troops Home NOW!

The Troops Out Now Coalition condemns the recent announcement that President Obama has ordered 17 thousand more troops to Afghanistan.

The people voted overwhelmingly for an end to war and occupation. The world demands that it end. Most importantly, the people of Afghanistan, Iraq, and Palestine demand that it end.

To send more U.S. soldiers to Afghanistan amidst new revelations of U.S. military war crimes, and at a time when working people here a facing an unprecedented economic crisis is an outrage. Every day, thousands are being laid off or thrown out of their homes - we need money for housing and jobs, not for war and endless occupation.

Escalating the war in Afghanistan is a betrayal of the faith that the people put in the new president to stop Bush's war on the world.

We must continue to mobilize to demand:

• No new troops!
• Immediate withdrawal of all U.S. troops from Iraq and Afghanistan
• Money for Human Needs Not War!

Join the Troops Out Now Coalition and many other groups at the March on the Pentagon, Saturday March 21 and the March on Wall St. April 3 &4

For more information or to get involved, go to www.TroopsOutNow.org
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"A szemünk előtt kínozták halálra társainkat" - újabb vallomások Guantánamóról

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Újabb részletek jelentek meg a Guantánamón alkalmazott kegyetlen kínzásokról: rab és őr beszámolója. A német Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitungnak nyilatkozott egy volt fogoly és egy korábbi börtönőr. Az előbbi, a pakisztáni születésű, de brit állampolgár, 40 éves Moazzam Begg három éven keresztül, 2002 januárja és 2005 januárja között raboskodott a fogolytáborban, míg az utóbbi, a 24 éves Christopher Arendt 2004-ben - egy éven keresztül - volt ott börtönőr.

Egymással csak most, Birminghamben találkoztak, ahol az újság az interjúkat készítette, a börtöntáborban nem hozta őket össze a sors, Begg ugyanis egy másik szárnyban raboskodott. Az ottani körülményeket azonban - bár másképp élték át azokat - hasonlóan festették le.
Moazzam Begg szerint az amerikaiak mindenkit, aki odakerült, al-Kaida tagnak, illetve afgán ellenállónak, azaz tálib terroristának minősítettek. Őt egyébként Iszlámábádban rabolták el, ahol annak idején családját látogatta meg. Rokonai szeme láttára hurcolták el őt ismeretlen személyek, szavai szerint nyilvánvalóan amerikaiak. 2001. szeptember 11. után azon a vidéken majdnem mindenki "gyanúsnak" számított.
A volt fogoly szerint a három év alatt szinte mindennap kínozták, mégpedig minden elképzelhető módszerrel. Botokkal és vasrudakkal verték, taposták, nem hagyták aludni, vagy elviselhetetlen zajokkal gyötörték, s kutyákat eresztettek rá. A feleségével és gyermekeivel kapcsolatos fenyegetések, zsarolások pedig szintén mindennapos kínzási módszert jelentettek.
A legkegyetlenebb tapasztalat azonban elmondása szerint annak átélése volt, amikor fogolytársakat a szeme előtt kínoztak halálra. "Amikor az ember mások kínzásának szemtanúja, s semmit nem tehet ellene, az rosszabb, mintha őt kínoznák" - nyilatkozta Begg.
A ma Chicagóban élő Arendt semmit nem cáfolt. A Pentagon fiatal katonaként, 19 évesen vezényelte Guantanámóra, s elmondása szerint elsősorban az ott alkalmazott pszichológiai terror viselte meg.
Foglyokat például órákon keresztül elviselhetetlen pozíciókba kényszerítették, hogy megakadályozzák őket az alvásban. Ebben, továbbá a bebörtönzöttek testi bántalmazásában ő is részt vett - ismerte be, hozzátéve - így utólag -, hogy élete legszörnyűbb évét töltötte Guantánamón.
Begg szerint az ott eltöltött évek örök traumát jelentenek. Bár most már szabadságban és családjával a él, egyszerűen nem lehet úgy élni tovább, mint Guantánamo előtt. Szabadulása óta egyébként sem az amerikai, sem a brit hatóságok semmit nem tisztáztak a vele történtekről.
Christopehr Arendt készségesen állt a német lap rendelkezésére. Szavai szerint egyszerűen nyilatkozni akart, mert az Egyesült Államokban senki nem kíván beszélni arról, ami ott történt, a média pedig nem az igazat közli.
Az egykori fogoly és az egykori börtönőr nem neheztel egymásra. Begg az interjúban barátjának nevezte Arendtet, az utóbbi pedig csodálta a guantánamói börtön volt lakójának erejét és bátorságát.

(MTI)
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Israeli Civilians?

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These children were attacked by ILLEGAL setters who tried to burn them alive by pouring petrol on them. This is NEVER reported in the media and most of the settlers are NOT prosecuted for their crimes.This is only a very SMALL selection of pictures.. There are MANY more showing attrocities these ILLEGAL Squatters are getting away with & do often!


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Kutyaólban tartottak fogva tálibokat

Felháborította az ausztráliai iszlám közösséget annak híre, hogy az Afganisztánban állomásozó ausztrál erők kutyaólban tartottak fogva tálib foglyokat. Joel Fitzgibbon védelmi miniszter elismerte kedden, hogy négy őrizetbe vett lázadót április végén 24 órán keresztül egy olyan helységben tartottak fogva, ahova egyébként olykor kutyákat is bezárnak. A miniszter azonban elutasította az ausztrál katonákat ért bírálatokat és hangsúlyozta: a foglyokat a rendelkezésre álló legbiztonságosabb helyen zárták el, mielőtt átszállították őket az Uruzgán tartománybeli tarinkóti fogva tartási központba.
Fitzgibbon szerint félrevezető azt állítani, hogy kutyaólban tartották fogva a foglyokat, mert információi szerint egy olyan helységről van szó, amelyet többféle célra is használnak, köztük valóban olykor kutyákat is elhelyeznek benne. A miniszter hangsúlyozta, hogy a kutyák nagyon fontos részét képezik az ausztrál katonák afganisztáni műveleteinek.

A muszlimok szemében viszont a kutya tisztátalan állat. A legnagyobb ausztráliai iszlám szervezet hevesen tiltakozott és megvetően nyilatkozott az esetről, amelyre egy afgán katona panasza nyomán derült fény. Afganisztán canberrai nagykövete nem bírálta az ausztrál katonákat, ám abból a szempontból aggasztónak nevezte az ügyet, hogy a tálibok propaganda célokra használhatják fel az esetet.

Abu Ghraib...emlékszik még valaki erre?

MTI

Továbbra is Boldog Ramadánt!
Ramadan Mubarak!

Katonai kézikönyv

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Egy kis "ajándék" angolul tudó barátaimnak...
Lehet tanulni!

Egyesült Államok Különleges Erők Dél-Afganisztáni Lázadás Elleni Kézikönyve

US Special Forces Southern Afghanistan Counterinsurgency Handbook

Letölthető
Download the Handbook

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Coalition air strikes kill 76 Afghan civilians

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KABUL (AFP) — A US-led coalition military operation in western Afghanistan on Friday killed 76 civilians, including 50 children and 19 women, the Afghan interior ministry said.

The coalition confirmed it carried out an operation that included air strikes in the western province of Herat but said 30 Taliban rebels were killed only and said it knew of no civilian deaths.

The Afghan defence ministry meanwhile gave yet another toll -- five civilians and 25 rebels dead. It was impossible to independently verify what happened in volatile Shindand district, but the conflicting reports highlight the difficulty in establishing facts in the mounting clashes between troops and rebels.

"Seventy-six people, all civilians and most of them women and children, were martyred during the operation by coalition forces in Shindand district of Herat province," the ministry said in a statement. The dead were "19 women, seven men and the rest children all under 15 years of age," it said.

"The interior ministry, while expressing its profound regret because of this incident which happened by accident, has sent a delegation of 10 people to the area and more details will be announced once the investigation is completed," the statement said. If the death toll is confirmed it would be one of the highest for civilians in the battle to fight the extremist Taliban, who were ousted during a US-led invasion in 2001.

The ministry said an unknown number of civilians were also wounded, with some of them in a critical condition. The police chief for western Afghanistan, Akramuddin Yawer, had also said 76 people were killed in the incident and 15 houses were destroyed in strikes. "Taliban are included but their number is unknown," he said.

But the coalition said 30 insurgents were killed in clashes and air strikes that followed an ambush on Afghan National Army (ANA) and coalition troops as they were going to arrest a Taliban commander. "The ANA and coalition forces killed 30 insurgents," it said, adding a "known" Taliban commander was among the dead. Two civilians were wounded. "No other civilian or friendly casualties were reported," the coalition said.

Asked about the ministry statement, US First Lieutenant Nathan Perry told AFP: "I definitely do not have any reports of a large amount of civilian casualties -- and we don't have any reports of civilian casualties at all." In Washington, a Pentagon spokesman could not account for the Afghan interior ministry claims, saying "the coalition remains confident in our reports that were released earlier today."

The Afghan army said five civilians -- three women and two children -- had died. "Planes bombed the area and in the result 25 Taliban were killed including two famous commanders," defence ministry spokesman General Mohammad Zahir Azimi told AFP separately. "Unfortunately, five civilians were killed and one woman and a boy were wounded."

Military operations and rebel attacks have increased in the summer with a Taliban-led insurgency growing steadily despite the efforts of nearly 70,000 international troops.

It has been a particularly bloody week for international troops with 10 French soldiers killed Monday in the deadliest ground fighting for the foreign forces since the 2001 ouster of the Taliban that brought international troops to the country.

Eight foreign soldiers including three Poles and three Canadians died in various incidents on Wednesday, most of them in bomb strikes. Another was killed in a bomb blast in eastern Afghanistan Friday, the coalition said in a statement that gave few details. Most soldiers in the east are American.

In other violence, police in the southern province of Uruzgan said that 11 Taliban were killed overnight after they attacked Afghan police and soldiers. And two Afghan soldiers were killed in Badghis province Friday when their vehicles hit a bomb, an Afghan army officer said.

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A civilizált nyugati megszállok meggyilkoltak hetvenhat civilt

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Az Afganisztánban állomásozó nemzetközi koalíció parancsnoksága szerint harminc fegyveres lázadó halt meg az Afganisztán nyugati részén végrehajtott légitámadásban. Az afgán belügy szerint 76 civil halt meg, a koalíció szóvivőjének "nincs tudomása" civil áldozatokról.

Az afgán belügyminisztérium szerint 76 afgán civilt megölt egy pénteki légitámadásával az amerikai vezetésű nemzetközi koalíció az ázsiai ország nyugati részén.
Az afgán minisztérium közleménye szerint az áldozatok többsége nő és gyermek. Számos további ember súlyosan megsérült, és válságos állapotban van. A koalíciós erők egy falut bombáztak Herát tartomány Síndand körzetében - áll a közleményben. A minisztérium mélységes sajnálkozását fejezte ki a véletlen, szerencsétlen eset miatt, és bejelentette, hogy vizsgálatot indít az ügyben.

Az afgán rendőrség egyik helyi illetékese megerősítette, hogy az áldozatok többsége nő és gyermek, de hozzátette, hogy vannak a halottak között tálibok is. Mint mondta, 15 ház dőlt romba a koalíciós erők által végrehajtott bombázásban.

Az afgán védelmi miniszter eltérő adatokat közölt korábban a történtekről. Szóvivője szerint két órán át ostromolták az afgán hadsereg kijelölt osztagai és az amerikai különleges alakulatok katonái pénteken reggel a tálibok állásait Herát tartomány Síndand körzetében, és a nemzetközi erők légi támogatást nyújtottak az ostromhoz. 25 tálib harcossal végeztek, köztük két magas rangú parancsnokkal, de öt véletlen civil áldozata is volt a légi csapásoknak.

A nemzetközi koalíció amerikai parancsnokságának bejelentése szerint harminc fegyveres lázadó halt meg az Afganisztán nyugati részén végrehajtott légitámadás következtében és a hozzá kapcsolódó földi ütközetben. "Civil áldozatokról nincs tudomásom" - mondta Nathan Perry, a parancsnokság szóvivője.

Az afgán lakosság körében egyre növekvő elégedetlenséget gerjesztenek a külföldi katonák harci tevékenységének civil áldozatairól szóló hírek. Július közepén egy esküvői menetre hullottak bombák, a násznép 47 tagja esett halálos áldozatául az amerikai légitámadásnak a kelet-afganisztáni Nangarhar tartományban.

MTI

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/breaking/2008/0823/breaking96.htm
http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=67337&sectionid=351020403

Magyar katonai misszió Afganisztánban

Meghalt egy magyar katona Afganisztánban

Meghalt egy magyar katona Afganisztánban, miközben magyar idő szerint reggel hét órakor egy házi készítésű bombát próbált hatástalanítani, ám az felrobbant. A katona a Baghlan tartományban szolgáló Magyar Honvédség Tartományi Újjáépítési Csoport tűzszerész részlegének volt a tagja.

Magyar idő szerint reggel hét óra előtt hívták ki az illetékes hatóságok az Afganisztánban szolgáló az Magyar Honvédség Tartományi Újjáépítési Csoport (MH PRT) tűzszerész tagjait, mert egy másodrendű úton bombát találtak. A bombát hatástalanítani kellett volna, de a házi készítésű szerkezet felrobbant a magyar katona kezében, aki azonnal meghalt.

Szekeres Imre intézkedett az eset kivizsgálásáról. A honvédelmi miniszter tájékoztatta a balesetről a Magyar Köztársaság elnökét, a miniszterelnököt, valamint az Országgyűlés Honvédelmi és Rendészeti Bizottságának elnökét és a parlamenti pártok frakcióvezetőit.

A Honvédség értesítette a katona hozzátartozóit. A honvédelmi miniszter, a HM Honvéd Vezérkar főnöke és Tömböl László altábornagy, a Magyar Honvédség Összhaderőnemi Parancsnokság parancsnoka részvétét fejezte ki a családnak, ahogy Sólyom László köztársasági elnök is. Az eset részleteiről kora délután ad tájékoztatást a minisztérium.

A bagláni tartományi újjáépítési csoport (PRT) vezetését 2006 óta látja el Magyarország. Az afganisztáni akció a NATO jelenlegi legnagyobb katonai művelete: a közép-ázsiai országban 47 ezer fős erő állomásozik, köztük 250 magyar katona szolgál. Az afganisztáni magyar újjáépítési csoportban kilenc tűzszerész szakember dolgozik, feladatuk az úgynevezett improvizált robbanószerkezetek felderítése, hatástalanítása és megsemmisítése.

A Honvéd Tűzszerész és Hadihajós Zászlóalj parancsnoka, Hajdú Gábor mérnök ezredes korábban az MTI-nek azt mondta, hogy nagyon komoly vizsgakövetelményeket támasztanak a tűzszerészekkel szemben, sőt a tűzszerészeknek minden évben vizsgázniuk kell. A tűzszerészek itthoni és külföldi feladataival kapcsolatban úgy fogalmazott: minden nap, minden egyes feladat veszélyes, nincs rutinmunka, még a legkisebb eszköz megsemmisítése is óriási veszéllyel jár és teljes embert kíván.

Az afganisztáni misszióban ez volt az első magyar halálos áldozat. Irakban 2004-ben egy robbantásos támadásban halt meg Nagy Richárd szakaszvezető. Az akkori vizsgálat során megállapították, hogy nem volt kivédhető a merénylet, és azt is, hogy nem a magyar szállítókonvoj volt a támadás célpontja.

Mti-Index

Zsidók a Szent Bibliát, amerikai katona a Szent Koránt gyalázta meg...

Egy hónapon belül, két olyan tett, mely ugyanazokból a "forrásokból" táplálkozik. Az intolerancia, a pokol sötétségét idéző ostobaság, az amerikai-cionista tengely mérhetetlen gőgje ösztönzi az ilyen és a korábbi hasonló -Mohamed Prófétát (WAS) káromló karikatúrák- cselekedeteket. Emberek millióit sértették meg korában: egy a vallását tagadó de zsidó származású dán lapszerkesztő és egy fél analfabéta amerikai zsoldban álló förmedvény a muszlimokat, és a napokban a katolikusokat, a megszállt Palesztinában, mikor egy szélsőséges zsidó ortodox jesiva hallgatói máglyában égették el az Új Testamentumot, mint Nürnbergben és más német városokban a múlt század harmincas éveiben a nácik a "zsidó" műveket. A párhuzámok adódtak. Akár önkényesnek is tetszhet ezen hírek így egy más mellé szerkesztése. De attól még ezek konkrét események. Megtörténtek. Nem szándékozom nyitva hagyni semmilyen kérdést: egy az ellenség.
Ideje ezt fölismerni.

A Szent Koránt használta céltáblának egy amerikai katona

George Bush amerikai elnök is bocsánatot kért, amiért egy amerikai katona nemrégiben a Szent Koránt használta céltáblának Bagdad közelében. Hírügynökségi jelentések szerint, Nuri al-Maliki iraki miniszterelnök elfogadta Bush bocsánatkérését.

Az Irakban állomásozó amerikai katonai hatóságok előzőleg már sajnálatukat fejezték ki a helyi közösségnek a május 11-i eset miatt, amelynek során a katona lőgyakorlatot végzett a muzulmánok szent könyvének egyik példányán, majd káromkodásokat firkált a könyvbe.

A szunniták és az amerikaiak kapcsolatát megingató eset feledtetésére egy amerikai tiszt megcsókolt egy Szent Koránt és "szerény ajándékként" átnyújtotta azt a törzsi vezetőknek.

Az eddig meg nem nevezett katonát azóta hazaküldték az Egyesült Államokba. Az amerikai hadsereg "súlyos és mélyen aggasztó" esetként írta le az incidenst, de hangsúlyozták, hogy elszigetelt jelenségről van szó, amely egyetlen katona akciójának eredménye. Bár szombaton Jeffrey Hammond, a bagdadi csapatok főparancsnoka már személyesen bocsánatot kért a helyi vezetőktől, és ígéretet tett, hogy az eset nem fordul elő többet, úgy tűnik, mégsem nyugodtak meg a kedélyek.

Tarik al-Hasemi iraki alelnök hétfőn kormányzati fellépést szorgalmazott a katonák ellen, de elítélte a Szent Korán meggyalázását több muzulmán vezető is. Nuri al-Maliki kormánya ennek ellenére nem tervez lépéseket az eset ellen.

Friss hír

Az Afgán Parlament elitélte a Szent Koránt Irakban meggyalázó amerikai katonát

Az Afgán Parlament felsőháza, a Mishrano Yirgah, keddi rendkivüli ülésén élesen itélte el a hónap közepén -Irakban- egy amerikai katona által elkövetett tettet.

A felsőház határozata követeli a nemzetközi közösségtől és az amerikai hatóságoktól a katona szigorú megbüntetését mivel -véleményük szerint- a világ összes muszlimját sértették meg legmélyebb vallási érzelmeikben.

Parlamento afgano censura al estadounidense que disparó contra el Santo Corán en Iraq

Mundo Islámico- Fuente: RIA Novosti

Estudiantes afganos protestan contra la presencia militar de EEUU en el país

La cámara alta del parlamento de Afganistán, Mishrano Yirgah, ha censurado bruscamente este martes el ultraje al Santo Corán cometido por un militar estadounidense en Iraq, informa un corresponsal de RIA Novosti.

El incidente se produjo el 9 de mayo en la aldea de Radvania, cerca de Bagdad. Un soldado de EEUU utilizó allí el libro sagrado de los musulmanes como blanco durante la práctica del tiro.

Los diputados calificaron ese acto como una burda vejación de los sentimientos religiosos de los musulmanes del mundo entero y exigieron de la comunidad mundial y las autoridades de EEUU castigar severamente al soldado.

La Mishrano Yirgah insistió en citar al embajador de EEUU en Kabul y al viceministro de Asuntos Exteriores de Afganistán a asistir a la reunión de la cámara, para que la parte estadounidense refiera qué medidas se adoptaron con respecto al profanador del Santo Corán.

Según informó anteriormente la agencia France Presse, alegando datos del canal de televisión Al Iraquia, el presidente de EEUU, George Bush, presentó excusas al primer ministro de Iraq, Nuri al Maliki, por lo que hizo el soldado estadounidense.

US army depression sick in Iraq

Study Estimates Huge Need for US Military Mental Health Care
Voice of America News | Apr 21, 2008

PENTAGON: A prominent research organization estimated Thursday that 300,000 of the 1.5 million U.S. troops who have served in Iraq or Afghanistan have symptoms of post traumatic stress disorder or major depression, and a similar number may have suffered traumatic brain injuries, mainly from explosions. The Pentagon welcomed the study, and says it is working on the issues.

Ha nem mennek ki -megmondtuk még mielőtt bevonultak volna, ne tegyék! ez lesz a vége...- megfognak bolondulni mind!

Az Irakban illetve Afganisztánban szolgalatot teljesített másfél millió amerikai katona közül (ők azt mondják "legalább", mi úgy tudjuk: "több mint"!) 300.000 szenved az un. PTS-től (Poszt traumatikus stressz szindróma) vagy súlyosabb depressziótól, legalább ugyanennyi katona még traumatikus agyi károsodás szenvedett, többségükben robbanásoktól. Az elismert kutató intézet jelentését a Pentagon szívesen fogadta és bejelentette "dolgoznak az ügyön"
The co-leader of the study by the Rand Corporation, Terri Tanielian, calls the situation "a major health crisis" that could have "long-term consequences" if it is not addressed. Among her findings are that only about half of the Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans who have symptoms of post traumatic stress disorder, depression and traumatic brain injury have sought treatment, and only half of those received adequate treatment.

"We were able to assess when those folks did get care, what type of care they got and whether it met criteria for what we would define as an adequate dose of treatment," said Terri Tanielian. "And too few were getting what we would define as a minimally adequate set of services."

Tanielian's 500-page study - based on interviews with 1,900 service members - says mental health problems are particularly prominent among combat veterans who are women or members of the reserves. It also estimates that the mental and brain disorders from the wars could cost the U.S. economy more than $6 billion over the next two years. But it says $2 billion of that could be saved if treatment is improved.

Colonel Loree Sutton of the Pentagon's Center for Excellence on post traumatic stress disorder and traumatic brain injury says the Rand study confirms research the military has done. But she is concerned about the allegation of inadequate care.

"Clearly, that's a finding that concerns us," said Colonel Sutton. "It's very consistent with the civilian literature, as well as with our own assessment of the challenges in this area. Closing that gap between knowledge and practice is really one of our very top priorities."

Colonel Sutton says the Rand study confirms that part of the problem is that some soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines are reluctant to seek treatment, in part because of fear it will affect their security clearances and their future careers. Her office is trying to spread the word that symptoms of stress are normal, and seeking treatment is a sign of strength, not weakness.

"For the folks who experience post-traumatic stress, that's a much larger number of folks than actually develop the disorder," said Sutton. "And so part of our challenge is to help families help individuals, warriors, help communities understand what are the normal reactions, the human responses, to stress."

The colonel, who is a psychiatrist, says the issue of traumatic brain injury from explosions and accidents is somewhat different. She says most concussions are minor, and resolve themselves naturally over a fairly short period of time.

The Rand study's co-leader, Terri Tanielian, agrees, and says while some brain injuries are clearly serious and have long-term consequences, some combat veterans may think they are suffering the aftereffects of such an injury when they are not.

"There are a significant number of service members that may be concerned about that exposure and attributing problems or difficulties that they're having today with that brain injury, even though, based on the civilian literature, the majority of those cases are likely to be very mild forms, such as concussions, and that most of the symptoms associated with that type of injury would have resolved by now," said Tanielian.

The researcher calls for more extensive screening and treatment to ensure brain injuries and mental disorders are properly diagnosed and treated, but she also acknowledges there is a nationwide shortage of people qualified to do that.

The military has said mental health problems are particularly acute among troops assigned to long and multiple deployments to war zones, as many U.S. combat brigades have been. Colonel Sutton says the military has hired or contracted with thousands of practitioners to prepare for the return of tens of thousands of troops from Iraq in the coming months as the surge of U.S. forces ends.