KABUL: The Taliban on Saturday refused to resume long-stalled peace talks with the Afghan government, reiterating their preconditions for holding dialogue, a statement said.

"We want to repeat our stance once again that until the occupation of foreign troops ends, until Taliban names are removed from international blacklists and until our detainees are released, talks will yield no results," it said.

Afghan asylum seekers can now be sent back to their war-ravaged country after an appeal by Home Secretary Theresa May saw a blanket ban on deportations overturned.

Apparently a new feature of the modern war of terror is the shameless, blameless, overt targeting of hospitals, doctors and bedridden patients, all without the means of even modest self-defense.

Today, it is reported that bomb blasts and gunfire near the Indian consulate in the eastern Afghanistan city of Jalalabad killed six people, including a police officer and four gunmen. According to the report, the Wednesday explosions are targeted in an area with several other foreign missions...

Up to the states he says. A Constitution Man. I can dig it!

Published on Oct 29, 2015
Trump answers legalization of marijuana question at Reno, NV rally on 10/29/15. His answer: he supports medical marijuana FULLY, and supports state legalization of RECREATIONAL marijuana.

A failed challenge to the credibility of a journalist by the Defence Force has blown up in its face, cost taxpayers more than $1 million and resulted in an Afghan police unit commander whose evidence did not survive scrutiny seeking to stay in New Zealand as a refugee.

The commander was flown out to be the Defence Force's key witness in a defamation case but the Herald can reveal he did not return home after the retrial was abandoned and is seeking to stay permanently.

In response to one of a series of Official Information Act requests by the Herald, the Defence Force confirmed only one of two people it flew from Afghanistan for the retrial boarded their return flight on December 15, 2014.

"No further information is able to be provided on the second person," it said.

The Herald understands the person who returned to Kabul was an interpreter and that the commander remains in New Zealand and is pursuing an application to be accepted as a refugee.

Commentators grossly oversimplify when they reduce the revolt to incoherent expressions of ‘anger’.

The presidential elections of 2016 have several unique characteristics that defy common wisdom about political practices in 21st century America.

Clearly the established political machinery – party elites and their corporate backers -have (in part) lost control of the nomination process and confront ‘unwanted’ candidates who are campaigning with programs and pronouncements that polarize the electorate.

But there are other more specific factors, which have energized the electorate and speak to recent US history. These portend and reflect a realignment of US politics.

In this essay, we will outline these changes and their larger consequences for the future of American politics.

We will examine how these factors affect each of the two major parties.

The Globalists and the Islamists:

Fomenting the "Clash of Civilizations" for a New World Order

Part Two:

The Muslim Brotherhood – The Globalists' Secret Weapon

I. The Roots of Islamic Terrorism
II. Creating the 'Arc of Crisis'
III. The Muslim Brotherhood Branches Out
IV. Osama Bin Laden: The Early Years
V. Bin Laden In Exile
VI. World Trade Center 1993
VII. Bin Laden's Money Problems
VIII. The Brotherhood Revolution Continues

If the rebels grasp the chance and enter serious negotiations for a coalition government, peace is possible.

The Russians accepted the US proposal to cease fire in Syria (or rather to end hostilities). They had made a similar proposal a few weeks ago, so this is in line with their thinking. Russians have made huge successes in Syria; they achieved an astonishing and unexpected victory with very few losses.

It was a reputational victory it was as well as a military one. Russia entered the Syrian war at a low point internationally.

Paul Craig Roberts blogs on the recent release of an updated version of the book "Confessions of an Economic Hit Man" by the former "hit man" John Perkins.

PCR:
Perkins shows that despite his revelations, the situation is worse than ever and has spread into the West itself. The populations of Ireland, Greece, Portugal, Spain, Italy, and the United States itself are now being looted by Hit Man activity.

Perkins’ book shows that the US is “exceptional” only in the unbridled violence it applies to others who get in its way. One of the new chapters tells the story of France-Albert Rene, president of Seychelles, who threatened to reveal the illegal and inhumane eviction of the residents of Diego Garcia by Britain and Washington so that the island could be converted into an air base from which Washington could bomb noncompliant countries in the Middle East, Asia, and Africa. Washington sent in a team of jackels to murder the president of Seychelles, but the assassins were foiled. All but one were captured, tried and sentenced to execution or prison, but a multi-million dollar bribe to Rene freed them. Rene got the message and became compliant.

An unrivaled political pedigree and $100-million war chest were not enough to overcome an undeniable fact: voters didn’t buy what Jeb Bush was selling.

(*...all the king's horses and all the king's men...
from nursery rhyme 'Humpty Dumpty' )

Reading mainstream media news, analyses, and opinion pieces about this war is completely useless, as everything is either uninformed and clueless gibberish or propaganda and deception.

I wrote this text over several days and every time I sat down again to continue there came another headline to my mind. The first headline was “Nobody said, that it will be easy,” the second “Waiting for the Turkey-Russia showdown,” the third “Playing the terrorism game,” the fourth “Everything is better than war.”

In the end I settled for the header “The empire doesn’t retreat or compromise.”

This statement stands the test of time, it has been proven throughout human history, and there is only one single exemption, only one short period where retreat and compromise are a possibility. This short period is the time when the empire is in terminal decline and in the process of collapsing.

Western weapons and equipment flow freely between the so-called “moderate” rebels in Syria and their close allies from extremist groups like al-Qaida, according to an investigation from a BBC reporter. In a Dec. 17 episode of the BBC Radio series “The Report,” investigative journalist Peter Oborne documented disturbing evidence that the United Kingdom and United States continue to support the the Syrian opposition, particularly the Free Syrian Army, despite ample evidence that they work closely with extremist groups NATO has traditionally thought of as enemies.

The mosquito-borne Zika virus, which is becoming a burgeoning public health issue in 26 countries in the Latin American region, has been making international headlines for weeks. The symptoms of Zika are mild: They include joint pain, fever, rash, and red eyes, and should only last a few days — unless you’re pregnant.

So what are the “burn pits”? When the U.S. military set up a base in Iraq or Afghanistan, instead of building incinerators to dispose of the thousands of pounds of waste produced each day, they burned the garbage in big holes in the ground. The garbage they constantly burned included “every type of waste imaginable” including “tires, lithium batteries, asbestos insulation, pesticide containers, Styrofoam, metals, paints, plastic, medical waste and even human corpses.”

Here’s where the story gets even more infuriating. As a result of the privatization of many aspects of military operations, the burn pits were operated by Kellogg, Brown, and Root (KBR), a former subsidiary of Halliburton, the company where Dick Cheney was CEO before ascending to the White House. During the Bush administration, Halliburton made nearly $40 billion from lucrative government contracts (despite many corruption scandals), Dick Cheney and his corporate allies got incredibly rich, and the soldiers whose lives have likely been destroyed by this reckless operation… are pretty much screwed.

by Sheldon Richman, February 18, 2016

Donald Trump, for all his obnoxious demagoguery, is adding value to the presidential campaign by calling former President George W. Bush to account for 9/11 and the Iraq war, which set in motion the growth and spread of al-Qaeda and the rise of the Islamic State. Former U.S. rulers rarely face consequences for the horrible things they do in office. Condemnation is considered impolite.

So good for Trump. Unfortunately, he shows no sign of having done his homework; so his charges against Bush are little more than soundbites, allowing Bush defenders to dismiss Trump as a kook. But this time he is not a kook.

'I should stop campaigning maybe,' the candidate quips.

***
“The press is totally at the mercy of Donald Trump,” Bush said after Edward Scott, 58, a Bush supporter, stood up and expressed concern that the former governor’s pitch on preparedness and policy “doesn’t resonate” and that the bombastic businessman has been “knocking [him] off center.”

Moments later though, a second likely Bush supporter, David Villinger, 62, stood up and offered a similar lament that his campaign “has been co-opted by the P.T. Barnum of our time.”

Then a third questioner encouraged Bush to show more fire, asking Bush if he could be more of “an [S.O.B.]” like his brother.

The number of civilians killed or injured in Afghanistan in 2015 was the highest in the last seven years amid increased fighting between pro-government forces and insurgent groups.

Former Vice President Dick Cheney wants Donald Trump to get his facts straight. Cheney, who served under President George W. Bush from 2001-2009, sounded off on Trump for claiming that Bush failed to keep Americans safe in the wake of the September 11 terror attacks at Saturday’s GOP debate in South Carolina. Trump then held two press conferences on the campaign trail this weekend in case the press didn’t hear him the first time.

(*When Jeb called the family into his campaign , I didn't realize he meant the WHOLE family .
Cheney's screwing with us . 'claiming that Bush failed to keep Americans safe in the wake of the September 11 terror attacks' I don't recall that coming from Trump . I just remeber him saying 9/11 happened on Bush' watch . And if memory is serving me well , I seem to recall George W Bush & Richard Dick Cheney sitting in the highest executive chairs in the nation , on that day .)

Trump's Iraq comments were initially surprising, but they give conservatives a way to put Bush years behind them
***
Trump accused the former president of lying about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and called the war “a big, fat mistake.” Trump also sneered at Jeb Bush that the “World Trade Center came down during your brother’s reign.” These comments range from demonstrably true (the 9/11 comment) to arguable (there’s no proof that Bush knowingly lied, but his administration did heavily massage the evidence to get their preexisting desire to start a war in Iraq). Perhaps unaccustomed to hearing reality-based rhetoric during their debates, the Republican audience booed Trump loudly for this.

Washington and its allies are not interested in peace. They want regime change – by hook or by crook.

An end to the Syrian conflict is desperately needed. But the latest plan for a cessation of violence is unlikely to take hold, as the deal struck by international powers is based on fundamentally opposing premises.

In short, Washington and its allies want regime change, while Russia and Iran insist that President Bashar Al-Assad and his government are the legitimate ruling authorities in Syria. All sides are mandated by UN resolutions to respect the sovereign will of the Syrian people – to determine the political future of their country.

Now the deed is done, the corridor is blocked.

If and when Aleppo and the whole Aleppo district will be taken by the Syrian army, we would be able to congratulate Putin and Assad – and Syrian people – with a great victory.

The Russians raise alarms that a Turkish invasion into Syria is imminent. Russian media is foaming at the mouth about the perfidious Turks; a veritable Two Minutes Hate ritual (vide Orwell) on the state-managed TV channels being repeated a few times a day. The idea is to scare Turks stiff so they will not move while the operation in the North lasts. On the other side, the Russian opposition draws frightful scenarios of Janissaries slaughtering the Russian boys on the Syrian terrain. The Turkish media also tries to instil fear in the Russkies by saying what they can do.

The United Nations said Sunday Afghan hostilities left more than 3,500 civilians dead and nearly 7,500 others wounded in 2015, an increase of four percent in civilian casualties from the previous year.

The U.N. Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) said the number of civilian casualties during 2015 were the highest recorded since it began its systematic documentation of civilian casualties in 2009.

By Steven MacMillan

Afghanistan is a geostrategic and economic prize that the West will not want to relinquish anytime soon. In an interview at the end of 2015, the former chief of staff to Colin Powell and retired US Army Colonel, Lawrence Wilkerson, outlined the realistic timescale he believes the US will be involved in Afghanistan, in addition to emphasizing the strategic importance of the country to the US. Speaking to Abby Martin on her show The Empire Files for Telesur, Wilkerson asserted that the “US presence in Afghanistan will not go away for another half-century” ...

The head of an international medical charity whose hospital in northern Afghanistan was destroyed in a U.S. airstrike says the "extensive, quite precise destruction" of the bombing raid casts doubt on American military assertions that it was a mistake.

The Oct. 3 attack on the compound in Kunduz city, which killed at least 22 patients and hospital staff, should be investigated as a possible war crime, said Christopher Stokes, general director of Doctors Without Borders, which is also known by its French abbreviation MSF.

By John Vibes

According to numbers released by the United Nations this week, the US military is murdering innocent civilians at ever-increasing rates and is killing more innocent people each year. In fact, recent reports have indicated that the US military has broken its record for civilian casualties every single year in Afghanistan, for the past seven years...

***
Trump began by saying that he gets "along with everybody" and noted he was a "self funder" amid boos from the crowd, which he'd cast as interest groups supporting Jeb Bush.

“Obviously the war in Iraq was a big fat mistake," Trump said.

He then criticized Jeb Bush's response earlier in the campaign on Iraq. “It took him five days before his people told him what to say," about whether it was the right decision to invade.

When asked again whether he still thought the 43rd president should have been impeached, he said: “You call it whatever you want," adding that officials in the Bush administration had "lied."
***
He[JEB] added that while Trump was focused on creating a reality television show, “my brother was building a security apparatus to keep us safe." That prompted Trump to interject that the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks had occurred while George W. Bush was in office.
***
Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, who hasn't exactly been a frequent ally of Jeb Bush in recent months, joined with the former Florida governor in arguing that President Bush had kept the nation safe, which again led to Trump saying "the World Trade center came down" during Bush's presidency.

Jeb Bush On His Foreign Policy Chops: Florida National Guard Ran Abu Ghraib Prison
“I was commander-in-chief of the National Guard. I visited Iraq and Afghanistan. The National Guard in Florida took the responsibility of running Abu Ghraib prison. I walked that prison. I saw the heroic effort of the citizen soldiers taking care of their job with great distinction. I supported our Guard in every possible way.”

Republican presidential candidate Jeb Bush cited his experience as head of the Florida National Guard in a radio interview Friday to counter claims from Marco Rubio that he lacked foreign policy credentials. The former Florida governor singled out the Florida Guard that ran the scandal-plagued Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq as proof of his foreign policy chops.

the curious case of Michael Scheuer and his marriage to the CIA’s “Queen of Torture” Alfreda Frances Bikowsky, the media’s overall silence on the issue, and why it matters.

The US Department of Defense grudgingly released 198 photographs of detainees mistreated by US forces in Iraq and Afghanistan between 2003 and 2006.

Germany will only continue to provide security support to Afghanistan if the influx of refugees from the nation ceases, the country’s interior minister said.

The American military has again delayed the publication of images of torture in US prisons in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Afghanistan – a place, where war has been going on for more than a decade.

The Taliban controls more of the country than at any time since U.S. troops invaded in 2001, notes the quarterly report to Congress by the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction. The fragile economy is worsening. One of the few bright spots of the troubled reconstruction effort — getting more girls in school — has been tainted by allegations of fraud.

This one’s so funny that it must be some kind of U.S.-led initiative; I can’t believe the Afghans have this kind of a sense of humor.

ISIS Boss’s Boss’s Boss’s Boss’s Boss’s Boss

The Inspector General for a government task force in Afghanistan says the agency squandered millions of taxpayer dollars on unnecessary costs.

Pakistan is once again mourning mass casualties from an armed assault on one of its schools. At least 20 people were killed and dozens injured on Wednesday when gunmen stormed the northwest Bacha Khan University under the cover of morning fog.

Every false flag in the making is detected ahead of time by somebody’s intelligence services—usually more than one country—because spying today is so effective and so universal. Officials in possession of this secret information often pass it on to the country that’s targeted, in the sincere belief that a heads-up will be appreciated.

But often the information isn’t welcomed—-because the fix is already in. Treasonous assets within the targeted country’s chain of command, who are prepared for the possibility of a leak, take measures to block the information from reaching those who might act on it in a meaningful way.

Obama administration announced new online initiatives to bolster its foreign policy narratives and as a means to counter others, for example, this network, RT.

Maybe a better course of action would be for the US State Department to ask itself why fewer and fewer people trust and believe it?

CrossTalking with Mark Sleboda, Don DeBar and James Carden.

Also see: Uncle Sam Got a Shiny New Propaganda Bullhorn for Christmas

The EU has no-one else to blame for its present stresses and strains but itself, owing to its craven subservience to Washington's reckless policies.

The American and British governments are launching yet another media campaign to demonize Russia, with tall claims that the Kremlin is infiltrating European political parties and news media. The dastardly Russian aim, we are told, is to destroy the European Union.

Twenty-five years after the end of the Cold War and the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Washington and its trusty sidekick in London are desperately seeking to turn back the clock to the “good old days” when they could control their public through scare stories.

The United States has spent nearly half a billion dollars and five years developing Afghanistan’s oil, gas and minerals industries — and has little to show for it, a government watchdog reported today. In fact, the task force spent $46.5 million to try to convince companies to agree to develop the resources, but not one ended up signing a contract.

British generals were “arrogant, needy and slow” to act during the “messy” 10-year occupation of Helmand province in southern Afghanistan that cost hundreds of British lives, according to an internal report.

The US occupation of Afghanistan will never end

Democracy has been projected on to a fictitious screen of good guy and bad guys. The people watch as impotent spectators, no longer even aware of the real story out there.

Ever since armed white ranchers took over federal property in Oregon the unfolding drama has resembled a parody of a Hollywood Western. Trouble is, no-one is quite sure who’s wearing the white hats as opposed to the black ones.

This is all quite shamelessly a far cry from when the ‘War on Terror’ was declared in 2001 and who knows what the future holds with respect to alliances in the war on the Syrian state. Perchance to say, if ISIS bides its time, it too, in several years will be heralded by the British and American governments as not only “moderate rebels” but “super-moderate rebels.”

Afghan soldiers are struggling against the Taliban, in part because close to 40% of Afghanistan's forces are "ghost soldiers," troops that exist only on paper. Karim Atal is the head of the provincial council in Helmand, where the resurgent Taliban has seized large areas of land since the United States handed over control to Afghan forces a year ago. "At checkpoints where 20 soldiers should be present, there are only eight or 10," Atal told the Associated Press. "It's because some people are getting paid a salary but not doing the job because they are related to someone important, like a local warlord." In other cases, dead soldiers and police remain listed among active participants, while senior police or army officials pocket the salaries of the deceased, said Attal, who estimates that some 40% of the registered forces do not exist, the AP reported...

A blast near the Indian and the Pakistani diplomatic missions in the Afghan city of Jalalabad in the Nangarhar province on Wednesday killed at least 5 police officers and left 11 people injured, according to a security source as cited by Afghanistan's broadcaster TOLOnews. ??Shortly after the blast, gunmen started exchanging fire with Afghan security forces. Clashes still continue in the area, the source told TOLOnews. According to the NDTV news outlet, officials have said that the attack in the area where there are many foreign consulates was carried out by a suicide bomber. All Indians at the consulate were reported to be safe, NDTV reports. According to other media reports, at least four people have been killed and two injured in the blast. The Iranian diplomatic mission in the city could also reportedly be affected. No group has claimed responsibility for the attack.

The right of women to be unmolested has been sold in favor of politically-correct reporting on migrants – even when they are guilty of system rape, groping and harassment.

Hordes of young men pressed against young girls, fondled and tried to cop a feel over and under skirts, pants and shirts.

“She was very interested and listened until I told her that all the boys and men that were apprehended were young asylants (unaccompanied is the terminology used by Swedish authorities) from Afghanistan and Syria.

Read more at SHTFplan.com

The Unites States government has played a crucial role in the development of the complex and volatile political situation that now exists in the Middle East, and they have had a heavy hand in influencing the region since the first world war. From propping up dictators to funding rebel groups for regime change, the U.S. and their allies have been creating monsters in the Middle East for generations. Western involvement in the region became more pronounced and more militarized during the Cold War, where the western allies and the Soviets fought proxy wars all over the world.

Fmr. Senior Airman Cian Westmoreland discusses why he began to question his work in assisting more than 350 civilian deaths in Afghanistan.

At least one US special forces soldier was reportedly killed and others were wounded in Afghanistan. The medical helicopter that came under to cue them came under fire.

They have descended from homes built on the mountainside. Women sit together in the cemetery not to mourn but to wait for the duvet distribution to begin. When I approach them, each woman extends a hand in greeting. Some have the needed small stamped pieces of paper to receive two duvets but most don’t.