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Afghan Human-Rights Campaigner Answers Her Critics
By Abubakar Siddique October 7, 2012 Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
A recently awarded Afghan human rights campaigner has found herself on the defensive as critics have questioned her organization's failure to publish its report on grave human rights violations committed in Afghanistan over the past three decades.
Last week, Sima Samar was named one of four recipients of this year's Right Livelihood Award, dubbed by some as "the alternative Nobel." The prize honors her work as a human rights campaigner toward improving the lives of others, and as a doctor caring for refugee women.
But that honor has been questioned by some, who note that the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission (AIHRC) has failed to answer calls to make public the results of its investigation into past rights violations. The research conducted by AIHRC, whose senior staff is appointed by the government, reportedly implicates many powerful government leaders and politicians in being involved in atrocities committed since the 1978 communist coup.
In a September 30 interview with RFE/RL's Radio Free Afghanistan, Samar said the AIHRC has much to be proud of in promoting and defending human rights in Afghanistan, and denied that there is any nefarious maneuvering related to the report.
Many powerful former militia commanders and warlords, some of whom are now senior government leaders and lawmakers, have slammed leaked excerpts from "Conflict Mapping in Afghanistan Since 1978."
Considering that the report accuses some 500 powerful leaders of abuses, observers have suggested that the AIHRC has been pressured not to publish the report.
Such critics, Samar says, have little understanding of the AIHRC's work.
"We are neither afraid nor under pressure. People are not familiar with the work of the commission, that is why they want us to put the perpetrators [of past crimes] on trial. We are not the police, the prosecutor, or the judges, and we do not have any of their powers," Samar says.
'No Political Will'
Abdul Sattar Sadat, a lawyer based in Kabul, says that time is running out for the AIHRC to release the report and allow justice to be served.
"Some of the leaders who people know well and whose names possibly figure in this report are being honored as national heroes. Universities are being named after others and their statues are being carved. But what we really need now is to clear up our past," Sadat says.
Samar says great political will is needed for past atrocities to be addressed, and that such decisions can only be made by the Afghan government and the international community backing it.
She says that, realistically, much consensus-building would have to take place within the Afghan government for it to move forward on this issue.
"Our government has three parts: the parliament, the judiciary, and the executive. Right now I do not see any political will among them to implement justice. They need to realize that justice is needed in Afghanistan and it must be served," Samar says.
Samar, 54, will share the prize of nearly $200,000 with the three other winners of this year's Right Livelihood Award, presented by the eponymous Swedish charity.
The prize jury cited "her longstanding and courageous dedication to human rights, especially the rights of women, in one of the most complex and dangerous regions of the world."
A medical doctor by training, Samar fled to Pakistan in 1984 when her husband disappeared following his arrest by Afghanistan's communist regime. In 1989, Samar established the Shuhada Organization in the southwestern Pakistani city of Quetta to provide health care to refugee Afghan women and girls and to train medical staff.
After the fall of the Taliban regime, Samar returned to Afghanistan in 2001. She became the country's first minister of women's affairs.
Only six months later she had to resign after criticizing Shari'a law during a media interview.
She has led the AIHRC since 2002. From 2005 to 2009 she was also the UN special rapporteur on human rights in Sudan.
Written by Abubakar Siddique in Prague, based on reporting by RFE/RL Radio Free Afghanistan correspondents Hamida Osman and Hameed Mohmand.
Afghan War Enters its 12th Year
VOA News October 7, 2012
October 7 marks the 11th anniversary of the beginning of the U.S.-led war in Afghanistan.
It has lasted longer than any other war in U.S. history. More than 3,000 international coalition troops have died in the war, including 2,000 Americans. Far more Afghan civilians have died.
The war was triggered by the terrorist attacks on the United States on September 11, 2001. Less than a month later, U.S. troops were on the ground in Afghanistan, attacking al-Qaida militants and the ruling Taliban government that hosted the terrorist organization.
The Taliban government was quickly toppled, but the militant insurgency has grown in strength over the years.
The U.S. and international troops have been plagued in recent months by a series of so-called insider attacks - assaults on Western troops by Afghan soldiers and police.
Coalition troops have begun pulling out of Afghanistan. All foreign combat troops are scheduled to be gone by the end of 2014.
The U.S. and NATO say Afghan forces will be capable of taking over the fight against the Taliban after 2014. However, many analysts predict a bloody new multi-factional civil war.
Some information for this report was provided by AFP.
Amid concerns about Afghan-American partnership, a story of trust
Washington Post By Kevin Sieff Sunday, October 7, 2012
KABUL - 1st Lt. Michael Molczyk had heard stories about “insider” attacks — and the Afghan soldiers and police officers who grew to see their partners as enemies. As a platoon commander, he couldn’t ignore those assaults on American troops, which during bad weeks were reported day after day.
But to him, he said, the stories sounded like news from a different planet. In Molczyk’s corner of eastern Afghanistan, uniformed Afghans had saved American lives time and again. They had developed a brotherhood with their U.S. partners that felt earned and unassailable.
Last month, NATO commanders advised troops to take precautions against potential traitors — and Molczyk did — but their concerns felt irrelevant in Paktia province’s Jaji district, he said.
“We’ve been in firefights together. We’ve frozen to death together,” he said in a phone conversation. “Our relationship has been so strong.”
And no relationship mattered more to Molczyk than his partnership with Jalaluddin, the head of the Afghan police in Jaji district who, like many Afghans, goes by only one name.
So when Molczyk’s unit recently got a late-night call from Jalaluddin, they picked up right away. Jalaluddin’s cousin, Noor, had been shot at a family wedding by a suspected insurgent. He was losing blood, and the local hospital couldn’t tend to his traumatic injury: a bullet wound in the ribs.
“We told him to come right over,” Molczyk said. Jalaluddin rushed his cousin to Combat Outpost Herrera, a small U.S. base in the middle of an enemy stronghold.
Soldiers carried the wounded man to the medical tent, where three medics assessed the damage. There was heavy blood loss. Even with a transfusion, Noor might die.
Molczyk was right outside the tent, listening. He knew Noor had probably been targeted because of his family’s close relationship to the U.S. military and Afghan security forces — his brother was also a police officer. Noor’s death would be a blow to them all.
“We need A-positive blood,” Molczyk heard the medic say.
Although it’s a common blood type, no one in the vicinity of the tent was A-positive — except Molczyk. He went inside, took his shirt off and offered his arm, tattooed with the words “Audentes fortuna juvat,” a Latin phrase meaning “Fortune favors the bold.”
But the medic rebuffed him, arguing that a platoon commander couldn’t afford to be weakened by donating blood.
“He told me that I couldn’t because I was combat active,” he said. “I told him I wanted to do this.”
Molczyk prevailed. Within minutes, his blood would revive Noor enough that he could be evacuated to a larger base.
“He came back from the end of his life,” Jalaluddin said in a separate phone conversation.
Although donating blood is routine in the United States, it is rare in Afghanistan and, for many, an act of magic.
It happened just days before Molczyk’s company was to leave the country: After they had purchased a goat as a wedding present for Jalaluddin. After the Americans assumed they had gotten as close to the Afghans as they could. After Molczyk’s men teased him that he was going to cry when it came time to say goodbye to Jalaluddin — which he thought he might.
After the blood transfusion, Jalaluddin approached Molczyk. “Now we are really brothers,” he said.
Jalaluddin had worked with Americans long enough to know that brotherhood is forged through such moments. He tried to convey that to Molczyk through an interpreter.
What he didn’t tell him was that he had seen Afghan-American relationships devolve at the same speed. Like the time one of his best officers got into a shouting match with an American soldier during Ramadan a few years ago, after the soldier cursed at his Afghan partner, Jalaluddin said. Finally, the Afghan officer drew his gun and fatally shot three U.S. troops — an early and devastating green-on-blue attack.
“It was a one-time thing. It was spontaneous. He was a great guy — one of our best officers,” Jalaluddin said. “And he became a killer.”
How to reconcile those two moments — the peak and nadir of relations with the Americans, both emerging suddenly and without notice? It made no sense to Jalaluddin.
The longer he worked with the Americans, the more he liked them. He was serious when he called Molczyk a brother. But he couldn’t shake the thought that a single misunderstanding such as the one he had witnessed could shatter a relationship that felt intimate and important.
"We have the same mission, the same aims,” he said. “We are both willing to die for each other.”
Noor is recovering at an Afghan military hospital. Afghan and U.S. forces are searching for the man who tried to kill him.
Meanwhile, another U.S. unit has arrived in Jaji to replace Molczyk and his men.
“They seem like good guys,” Jalaluddin said. “I hope we can continue the strong relationship that we had with the last group.”
Afghan police kill 28 militants within 24 hours
KABUL, Oct. 7 (Xinhua) -- The Afghan Ministry of Interior Affairs on Sunday said that the police forces, backed by the army and the NATO-led coalition forces, have eliminated 28 Taliban militants in different provinces within the past 24 hours.
"Afghan National Police (ANP) in collaboration with the army and coalition forces launched 17 cleanup operations in Kabul, Nangarhar, Laghman, Kapisa, Kunduz, Faryab, Wardak, Ghazni and Paktika provinces, killing 28 armed Taliban militants over the past 24 hours," the ministry said in a statement.
The ANP also detained 13 suspected militants besides seizing weapons and ammunition in the above raids, the statement added, without saying if there were any casualties on the side of security forces.
The Taliban insurgents, who have been waging an insurgency of more than one decade, have yet to confirm the death of their men.
The security forces have intensified cleanup operations against Taliban and other militants throughout the country recently but the insurgents in retaliation responded by carrying out bombings and laying out ambushes against them.
On Saturday, two U.S. soldiers with the coalition were killed in an insurgent attack in eastern Afghanistan, the coalition confirmed in a statement.
Pakistan Military Blocks Anti-US Protest From Tribal Region
VOA News October 7, 2012
he Pakistani military has prevented a convoy of thousands of people with the goal of protesting U.S. drone strikes common in the country's tribal areas from reaching South Waziristan.
Authorities stopped the group just short of the tribal region's border Sunday. Pakistani cricket star turned politician Imran Khan had been leading the march, which left Islamabad Saturday.
The protest group had more than doubled to 500 cars by the time it reached Khan's hometown, Mianwali. Local and Western peace activists were traveling alongside supporters of Khan's Movement for Justice party.
Pakistan's government restricts travel to the tribal regions, where it has been battling Taliban and other Islamist militants for years. Ahead of the march, Khan had dismissed concerns that militants would target his group, but a VOA reporter said Khan was riding in an armored vehicle with guards restricting easy access to him.
Drone strikes are a contentious issue between the U.S. and Pakistan. Islamabad says the strikes violate its sovereignty, while Washington believes they are a key tool in the effort to defeat Islamist militants.
Meanwhile, the U.S. embassy in Islamabad says Pakistan has issued a general threat alert for possible terrorist attacks Sunday in Islamabad.
The embassy says in a message on its website that Pakistan's interior ministry warns the attacks could target key government buildings in downtown Islamabad and several major hotels.
Let's Leave Afghanistan; What Is the Problem?
OpEdNews.com By Sandy Shanks 06/10/2012
As many readers know I have written several articles regarding Afghanistan on OEN. They have to do with our country recognizing that we have lost still another war that we caused and was a result of sheer ignorance and arrogance.
Imagine my surprise when I read an article by Anna Mulrine, Staff writer for the Christian Science Monitor entitled Afghanistan: Why don't we leave now? It can be argued that there are a few of us sane writers left, noting that the mainstream media hardly gives a thought to Afghanistan today let alone our insurmountable problems there.
Mulrine wrote, "Why can't we just leave Afghanistan now?" That makes a bit of sense when one considers that is exactly what the Soviet Red Army did after eight years of war ending in defeat. They left with their tail between their legs rather unceremoniously. The same is true of the British Empire who tried for years during the 19th Century to tame this wild land. Going back a few thousand years Afghanistan resisted successfully other empires including Alexander, the Great. These were lessons in history that our leaders ignored, and, can you imagine the absolute absurdity of our military leaders when we invaded this country the size of Texas with 3500 ground troops in Oct. 2001!
It is not that Afghanistan has some great military machine to defend its country. She cannot afford it. She is one of the poorest countries on Earth, her military ranks at the bottom of the scale, and she is at the bottom as a threat to the national security of any nation in her region let alone the mighty U.S. a half a world away.
What Afghanistan does have are extremely high mountains with extremely steep passes that rival the Himalayas where a few can hold off an enemy regiment. From their hideouts in the mountains raids can be made on their enemies after which they scurry back to their hideaways. Combine this with their fierce independence and a total reliance on their tribe. They cannot tolerate even an Afghan central government, let alone outsiders like the British, Soviets, and Americans.
Still another factor is that Afghan society is one that lives by the gun. The average 12-year old boy in Afghanistan is a sharpshooter with an AK-47. That might be a slight exaggeration but the reader gets my point. The average Afghan has a gun, knows how to use it, and has been using it to kill others. It is a way of life in Afghanistan. Moreover, the average American views the Afghan people as being from a different planet. I cannot stress this more strongly. The Afghan people have a perfect right to live just the way they want to live. They don't have much, but who gave Westerners the right to determine their fate?
The above paragraphs mirrors another society with its high mountains, steep passes, warlike defiance, and an urge for fierce independence, the American Indian in our vast West during 19th Century. How did the U.S. military solve the Indian problem? We eradicated the Indian. After we took their lands we killed most of them, including women and children, and imprisoned the rest on reservations, many of which still exist today.
Is this how we solve the Afghan problem? Well, that is not done these days, but the two societies parallel one another. The Afghan will never accept a Western-oriented central government in Kabul with its corruption and weakness self-evident. The Afghan has never accepted a central government. They rely -- you guessed it -- on the tribe. Sound familiar? 3,000 years of history ought to prove something.
The logic of our situation is inescapable. The only way to subdue the Afghan is to eradicate him. Since we cannot possibly do that in the 21st Century, the only other option is leave now. Eleven years of war and futility ought to prove something.
To paraphrase President Clinton it depends on what the meaning of the word now is. Mulrine is a Pentagon staff writer for CSM. There is little doubt that she is familiar with the logistics of the situation in Afghanistan. There is little doubt that she did not mean dropping everything, meaning our trucks, APC'S, tanks, computers and what all else, and head for the exits. No one is suggesting that. What Mulrine is talking about is a directive for an orderly strategic withdrawal from the region "now," meaning the very near future. No other recourse makes sense. Americans have had it with Afghanistan.
To illustrate, Obama and Romney rarely mention Afghanistan. This forgotten war has even been all but forgotten by our two Presidential candidates.
Following the statement made above, Mulrine added, "It's the unspoken question that top Pentagon officials are endeavoring to answer in their assurances that America must stay its course in the war-torn country." What follows is the usual pious platitudes from a military high command that is facing defeat and their political cronies. The comments are similar to Hitler who proclaimed that a German victory was inevitable as German cities were burning while his armies were retreating on every front.
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Martin Dempsey, stressed recently that the surge's purpose was "to buy us some time on some Taliban initiatives," he said, adding "and to buy us some space to grow the Afghan security forces." Well, that did not work.
But Dempsey says it did with a caveat that suggests Obama's plan did not work. Read between the lines to understand what Dempsey said. "The surge had its intended effect. I think it was an effort that was worth the cost -- and don't forget, it did have its cost."
Despite Dempsey's feel good remarks that fell well short of being encouraging, there is this indisputable fact. With the sharp increase of green-on-blue attacks on US forces, the joint Afghan-American patrols that are a key part of the training mission were suspended, deemed too dangerous to risk American lives. The good general failed to mention that fact.
The innocuous comments continue. The dunce cap for obsequious remarks is awarded to Anthony Cordesman, an Afghanistan analyst at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, who estimates that it will take "at least 13 months to clear the equipment we've got deployed. People forget that there are very real physical limits. We cannot leave the things behind at random -- they're worth too much and are potentially dangerous." True, we cannot leave behind our tanks, APC's, drone aircraft, trucks, computers, and God knows what all else, but we can leave behind airfields and mega bases that we built to the tune of hundreds of billion dollars. His remark implies that he knows that the vast majority of Americans and our leaders want out yesterday. But Cordesman says we have to wait at least 13 months. That is total nonsense and an insult to our military. If our military forces in Afghanistan got the word we are leaving, gather up your sh*t, and let's go, it would take two months, three months tops. Folks on th
e home front are not the only ones who want us to leave now.
But Cordesman was not through with making an absolute fool of himself. According to Mulrine, "The larger question, he adds, is whether it is strategically desirable to leave Afghanistan now. With a focus on tamping down corruption and with a couple more years work with the Afghan national security forces, "I think what you can accomplish is a reasonable chance that the Afghan government and economy can hold together with some chance of a coherent structure in Kabul, and a reasonable chance that the Afghan Army can be strong enough that, with some cooperation, it can hold insurgent forces at bay,' Cordesman says." He is dreaming. He is still not through.
"Can we guarantee a future? No," he adds. "Yes, it has been an incredibly costly and frustrating decade . And yes, we do not seem to have clear plans for the future."
However, he adds, "We can create a situation where we can show the world that we were not defeated, and at the same time avoid a decision that would deprive Afghanistan of any chance of stability." In all cases emphasis is mine. Cordesman fails to note that the lack of "stability," which is a euphemism for the Afghan's 3,000-year history of distaining a central government, preferring the tribe to provide security along with local and social needs, is a matter of their choice, not ours. They don't want what Americans want for them. Want proof. Over eleven years of fruitless war, and our leaders are too dumb to have learned that simple fact. The "show the world" comment is incomprehensible at best and illustrates that Afghans do not live in a different world. Cordesman does.
I do not necessarily wish to pick on Cordesman. He was simply a convenient target thanks to Ms. Mulrine. He is representative of the ludicrous remarks we hear from the President to the Pentagon publicity strategists to the generals. He was merely a servant to his leaders. They all fail to realize that Americans have learned of the follies of bad wars like Iraq and Afghanistan. Our leaders simply have not learned that lesson yet. Only God knows when they will.
In the meantime the actual enemy, the supposedly declining Taliban, has surged in its southern homeland. They recently launched the most devastating attack on a military base of the war, resulting in at least $200 million in allied loses. It's their first attack that might even faintly be compared to those the Vietnamese launched against American bases in the 1960s.
Earlier, I stated that the joint Afghan-American patrols that are a key part of the training mission have been suspended, deemed too dangerous to risk American lives. Those patrols were recently reinstated. Guess what happened next.
After a heavy weekend of violence, in still another green-on-blue incident a suicide bomber attacked NATO and Afghan forces, killing at least 14 on Oct 1st in the southeastern town of Khost. The attack came just two days after the 2,000th American died in Afghanistan in a green-on-blue confrontation between US and Afghan soldiers southwest of Kabul.
The Christian Science Monitor reported recently that while the US has seen a consistent drop in the rate of fatalities starting last year, attacks by Afghan soldiers and police on NATO forces have become a high-profile problem with no obvious solution.
Gen. John Allen, the top US commander in Afghanistan, expressed his frustration about insider attacks and warned that more should be expected. He stated, ""I'm mad as hell about them, to be honest with you. We're going to get after this. It reverberates everywhere, across the United States. You know, we're willing to sacrifice a lot for this campaign. But we're not willing to be murdered for it."
"At some level, when you make a decision to continue waging a war, losing lives and money, you make a decision that hopefully what you can get in exchange for that is worth it," says Stephen Biddle, professor of political science and international affairs at George Washington University and a former adviser to retired Gen. David Petraeus.
"At some point it will reach the point where what we get is no longer worth American lives."
Amen
Tom Engelhardt of TomDispatch and Arthur Bright , staff writer for the Christian Science Monitor contributed to this report.
Navy SEALs serve as buffer between Afghans and Taliban
USA TODAY By Carmen Gentile, Special for USA TODAY October 7. 2012
SHAH WALI KOT, KANDAHAR PROVINCE, Afghanistan - The use of special operations forces has been a contentious issue for Afghan leaders, who in recent years have been critical of "night raids," which Afghans say result in many civilian casualties.
The helicopter landed shortly after dawn on a remote hilltop in Kandahar province.
A combined force of U.S. Navy SEALs and Afghan commandos poured out and crouched in defensive positions as the copter's rotor kicked up a bank of thick, impenetrable dust.
When the air cleared, the men peered into the distance for assailants. Seeing none, they headed on foot to a small village to look for what they came for: "high-value" members of the Taliban and caches of bombmaking material.
Special operations like these will be crucial to the future security in Afghanistan once conventional fighting forces pull back as ordered by President Obama, U.S. military leaders say. They will work with specially trained Afghans to prevent militants from gaining back territory won by the coalition.
Maj Gen. Tony Thomas is head of the recently created Special Operations Joint Task Forces Afghanistan (SOJTF-A), which aligns under one command all 23 NATO countries with special operations soldiers in Afghanistan. Forces from the United States, Europe, the Middle East and Australia now work together "for a potential long-term security strategy," Thomas says.
As NATO forces wind down their conventional troops, now down to about half of the 100,000 number of a year ago, the Pentagon believes that the most elite soldiers in the coalition will need to remain beyond the complete withdrawal scheduled for the end of 2014 to prevent a rollback.
"Nothing is absolute, but we anticipate being here for the long haul," says SOJTF-A spokesman Lt. Col. Todd Harrell, emphasizing that a longer-term presence of special operations forces "must first be discussed with the Afghan government."
U.S. special operations troops in Afghanistan include SEALs, the Army's Green Berets and other highly trained units. The use of special operations forces has been a contentious issue for Afghan leaders, who in recent years have been critical of "night raids," which Afghans say result in many civilian casualties.
Ministry of Defense spokesman Gen. Zahir Azimi would not comment on the possible presence of special operations forces beyond 2014, though he says the current special operations missions are "good at fighting the insurgency as long as Afghans are in the lead.
On this mission, they are.
Afghan and U.S. troops walk single file along a barely visible footpath in hopes of avoiding buried mines, known as improvised explosive devices or IEDs. Earlier this year, a member of this SEAL team lost an eye when an IED detonated in a compound they were searching.
On this day, the troops find a few explosives. They place them outside the village and detonate them, and the blast is powerful enough that the soldiers are showered with small rocks even though they are hundreds of yards away.
No Taliban leaders are found. The SEALs know militant fighters are in the area from the Taliban radio chatter they are monitoring as they conduct their mission.
"Insurgents are saying they are trying to get together to attack us," says the SEAL team commander, a young lieutenant. The SEALs are permitted to talk to USA TODAY but are barred from identifying themselves — to maintain their secrecy and keep their families from risk of a terrorist attack.
"They talk a big game on the radio, but they probably won't do anything," he adds nonchalantly while his men keep a watchful eye for gunmen along the nearby river valley and their Afghan counterparts interview locals and search homes.
The SEALs have pegged the village a "facilitators' area," or a community that assists the Taliban, usually involuntarily.
A small collection of mud-brick compounds dot the sloping, scorched hills of this southern province where the Taliban movement began. Villagers tell the Afghan troops that there are Taliban in the area but have little information to give on their whereabouts.
"They (Taliban) threaten to cut off our heads and shoot us," says one man questioned by the commandos. "They tell us to 'grab our weapons and fight with us.' "
Every SEAL mission is conducted with the Afghan commandos, notes Harrell, saying that the missions provide valuable training for Afghanistan's elite soldiers to one day shoulder alone all security responsibilities.
Capt. Ibrahim Sherzai, company commander for the Afghan commandos working with SEALs in Kandahar, agrees.
"For the commandos to improve, we need the Americans to keep helping us with our missions," Sherzai says.
He says his men are more than capable of "seeking out a target and destroying" targets on their own but often need the backup of the SEALs and their help training more recruits.
"I can't say for how long we'll need their help, but if you look at the situation in Afghanistan, we're going to need them here for a while," he says. "We need them to keep giving the commandos the best training they can."
The SEALs are considered perhaps the most versatile and well-trained force in the U.S. military. About 70% of applicants wash out before completing the more than year-long course that tests their physical and mental stamina.
"There are a lot of things we do in training designed to break you down," says a SEAL lieutenant.
He recalls long hours carrying a giant log with other SEAL candidates along a sandy beach and going days with little sleep. The exercises demand teamwork and help weed out weaker candidates.
"They induce physical stress to induce mental stress," he says. "The training is ultimately designed to find and mold guys that can handle it when the bullets start flying."
The SEALs trace their origins to 1942, when the U.S. military needed to improve its ability to defend beachheads and mount offensive operations in World War II. It created the Amphibious Scout and Raider School to train elite soldiers.
The SEALs were not formally conceived until two decades later when Arleigh Burke, former chief of naval operations, recommended to President Kennedy the creation of a counterinsurgency naval unit to conduct high-risk, small force missions in Vietnam that could perform in sea, air or land, hence SEALs.
Many experts say that special forces will need to remain a presence in Afghanistan to ensure the Afghans can maintain security for themselves.
Afghan commandos rely on coalition special operations forces not only for training and backup, but for transport and other logistical needs necessary to prevail in battle. Sherzai noted that Afghans are being trained to fly helicopters and operate other advanced equipment, but they still lack the resources to operate in remote parts of Afghanistan, where the Taliban is most prevalent.
"They still have some crippling logistics issues," says Maj. Fernando Lujan, a Green Beret who is currently a visiting fellow at the Center for New American Security in Washington.
The SEALs based here in Camp Simmons say they are up for the mission and want to ensure their Afghan comrades succeed.
A SEAL from this particular unit, whose mission was witnessed by USA TODAY, was killed a few days later in a crash of a Black Hawk helicopter. Seven American troops and four Afghans died in the crash.
The SEALs here know that the task they've been given means any mission they go on could be the one in which they die. Never letting one's guard down is one of the best ways to survive, they say.
"You've got to treat every compound you enter, every mission you go on, like there is someone there that is trying to kill you," says the petty officer.
2 US Soldiers Killed in Afghan Attack
TOLOnews.com Sunday, 07 October 2012
Two US soldiers were killed during an insurgent attack in eastern Afghanistan on Saturday, the US military said in a statement.
The US military gave no further details.
No group including the Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack.
More than 2,000 US soldiers have been killed since 2001 in the Afghan war.
Nearly 270 US soldiers have been killed this year, along with 39 British and 43 other Nato-led troops, according to Icasualties.org, which keeps track of the number of foreign troop casualties in the country.
It comes after US Defence Secretary Leon Panetta on Friday said that the progress in Afghanistan has cost thousands of military lives and it would be helpful if Afghan President Hamid Karzai expressed gratitude for that sacrifice.
"We have made progress in Afghanistan because there are men and women in uniform who have been willing to fight and die for Afghanistan's sovereignty and their right to govern and secure themselves," he told reporters.
He was responding to Karzai's apparent criticism on Thursday where he urged the US and Nato to combat terrorism in the region, saying the focus should be to eliminate it at its roots – which are not in Afghanistan.
"The US and Nato should go to the places where the roots of the terrorism exist. They are saying one thing but acting contrary to that," he said in at a press conference in Kabul.
There are around 117,000 international soldiers, mostly Americans, fighting insurgents in Afghanistan. The troops will leave Afghanistan by the end of 2014 after the Afghan soldiers take full security responsibility of the country.
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www.afghanistannewscenter.com
By Abubakar Siddique October 7, 2012 Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
A recently awarded Afghan human rights campaigner has found herself on the defensive as critics have questioned her organization's failure to publish its report on grave human rights violations committed in Afghanistan over the past three decades.
Last week, Sima Samar was named one of four recipients of this year's Right Livelihood Award, dubbed by some as "the alternative Nobel." The prize honors her work as a human rights campaigner toward improving the lives of others, and as a doctor caring for refugee women.
But that honor has been questioned by some, who note that the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission (AIHRC) has failed to answer calls to make public the results of its investigation into past rights violations. The research conducted by AIHRC, whose senior staff is appointed by the government, reportedly implicates many powerful government leaders and politicians in being involved in atrocities committed since the 1978 communist coup.
In a September 30 interview with RFE/RL's Radio Free Afghanistan, Samar said the AIHRC has much to be proud of in promoting and defending human rights in Afghanistan, and denied that there is any nefarious maneuvering related to the report.
Many powerful former militia commanders and warlords, some of whom are now senior government leaders and lawmakers, have slammed leaked excerpts from "Conflict Mapping in Afghanistan Since 1978."
Considering that the report accuses some 500 powerful leaders of abuses, observers have suggested that the AIHRC has been pressured not to publish the report.
Such critics, Samar says, have little understanding of the AIHRC's work.
"We are neither afraid nor under pressure. People are not familiar with the work of the commission, that is why they want us to put the perpetrators [of past crimes] on trial. We are not the police, the prosecutor, or the judges, and we do not have any of their powers," Samar says.
'No Political Will'
Abdul Sattar Sadat, a lawyer based in Kabul, says that time is running out for the AIHRC to release the report and allow justice to be served.
"Some of the leaders who people know well and whose names possibly figure in this report are being honored as national heroes. Universities are being named after others and their statues are being carved. But what we really need now is to clear up our past," Sadat says.
Samar says great political will is needed for past atrocities to be addressed, and that such decisions can only be made by the Afghan government and the international community backing it.
She says that, realistically, much consensus-building would have to take place within the Afghan government for it to move forward on this issue.
"Our government has three parts: the parliament, the judiciary, and the executive. Right now I do not see any political will among them to implement justice. They need to realize that justice is needed in Afghanistan and it must be served," Samar says.
Samar, 54, will share the prize of nearly $200,000 with the three other winners of this year's Right Livelihood Award, presented by the eponymous Swedish charity.
The prize jury cited "her longstanding and courageous dedication to human rights, especially the rights of women, in one of the most complex and dangerous regions of the world."
A medical doctor by training, Samar fled to Pakistan in 1984 when her husband disappeared following his arrest by Afghanistan's communist regime. In 1989, Samar established the Shuhada Organization in the southwestern Pakistani city of Quetta to provide health care to refugee Afghan women and girls and to train medical staff.
After the fall of the Taliban regime, Samar returned to Afghanistan in 2001. She became the country's first minister of women's affairs.
Only six months later she had to resign after criticizing Shari'a law during a media interview.
She has led the AIHRC since 2002. From 2005 to 2009 she was also the UN special rapporteur on human rights in Sudan.
Written by Abubakar Siddique in Prague, based on reporting by RFE/RL Radio Free Afghanistan correspondents Hamida Osman and Hameed Mohmand.
Afghan War Enters its 12th Year
VOA News October 7, 2012
October 7 marks the 11th anniversary of the beginning of the U.S.-led war in Afghanistan.
It has lasted longer than any other war in U.S. history. More than 3,000 international coalition troops have died in the war, including 2,000 Americans. Far more Afghan civilians have died.
The war was triggered by the terrorist attacks on the United States on September 11, 2001. Less than a month later, U.S. troops were on the ground in Afghanistan, attacking al-Qaida militants and the ruling Taliban government that hosted the terrorist organization.
The Taliban government was quickly toppled, but the militant insurgency has grown in strength over the years.
The U.S. and international troops have been plagued in recent months by a series of so-called insider attacks - assaults on Western troops by Afghan soldiers and police.
Coalition troops have begun pulling out of Afghanistan. All foreign combat troops are scheduled to be gone by the end of 2014.
The U.S. and NATO say Afghan forces will be capable of taking over the fight against the Taliban after 2014. However, many analysts predict a bloody new multi-factional civil war.
Some information for this report was provided by AFP.
Amid concerns about Afghan-American partnership, a story of trust
Washington Post By Kevin Sieff Sunday, October 7, 2012
KABUL - 1st Lt. Michael Molczyk had heard stories about “insider” attacks — and the Afghan soldiers and police officers who grew to see their partners as enemies. As a platoon commander, he couldn’t ignore those assaults on American troops, which during bad weeks were reported day after day.
But to him, he said, the stories sounded like news from a different planet. In Molczyk’s corner of eastern Afghanistan, uniformed Afghans had saved American lives time and again. They had developed a brotherhood with their U.S. partners that felt earned and unassailable.
Last month, NATO commanders advised troops to take precautions against potential traitors — and Molczyk did — but their concerns felt irrelevant in Paktia province’s Jaji district, he said.
“We’ve been in firefights together. We’ve frozen to death together,” he said in a phone conversation. “Our relationship has been so strong.”
And no relationship mattered more to Molczyk than his partnership with Jalaluddin, the head of the Afghan police in Jaji district who, like many Afghans, goes by only one name.
So when Molczyk’s unit recently got a late-night call from Jalaluddin, they picked up right away. Jalaluddin’s cousin, Noor, had been shot at a family wedding by a suspected insurgent. He was losing blood, and the local hospital couldn’t tend to his traumatic injury: a bullet wound in the ribs.
“We told him to come right over,” Molczyk said. Jalaluddin rushed his cousin to Combat Outpost Herrera, a small U.S. base in the middle of an enemy stronghold.
Soldiers carried the wounded man to the medical tent, where three medics assessed the damage. There was heavy blood loss. Even with a transfusion, Noor might die.
Molczyk was right outside the tent, listening. He knew Noor had probably been targeted because of his family’s close relationship to the U.S. military and Afghan security forces — his brother was also a police officer. Noor’s death would be a blow to them all.
“We need A-positive blood,” Molczyk heard the medic say.
Although it’s a common blood type, no one in the vicinity of the tent was A-positive — except Molczyk. He went inside, took his shirt off and offered his arm, tattooed with the words “Audentes fortuna juvat,” a Latin phrase meaning “Fortune favors the bold.”
But the medic rebuffed him, arguing that a platoon commander couldn’t afford to be weakened by donating blood.
“He told me that I couldn’t because I was combat active,” he said. “I told him I wanted to do this.”
Molczyk prevailed. Within minutes, his blood would revive Noor enough that he could be evacuated to a larger base.
“He came back from the end of his life,” Jalaluddin said in a separate phone conversation.
Although donating blood is routine in the United States, it is rare in Afghanistan and, for many, an act of magic.
It happened just days before Molczyk’s company was to leave the country: After they had purchased a goat as a wedding present for Jalaluddin. After the Americans assumed they had gotten as close to the Afghans as they could. After Molczyk’s men teased him that he was going to cry when it came time to say goodbye to Jalaluddin — which he thought he might.
After the blood transfusion, Jalaluddin approached Molczyk. “Now we are really brothers,” he said.
Jalaluddin had worked with Americans long enough to know that brotherhood is forged through such moments. He tried to convey that to Molczyk through an interpreter.
What he didn’t tell him was that he had seen Afghan-American relationships devolve at the same speed. Like the time one of his best officers got into a shouting match with an American soldier during Ramadan a few years ago, after the soldier cursed at his Afghan partner, Jalaluddin said. Finally, the Afghan officer drew his gun and fatally shot three U.S. troops — an early and devastating green-on-blue attack.
“It was a one-time thing. It was spontaneous. He was a great guy — one of our best officers,” Jalaluddin said. “And he became a killer.”
How to reconcile those two moments — the peak and nadir of relations with the Americans, both emerging suddenly and without notice? It made no sense to Jalaluddin.
The longer he worked with the Americans, the more he liked them. He was serious when he called Molczyk a brother. But he couldn’t shake the thought that a single misunderstanding such as the one he had witnessed could shatter a relationship that felt intimate and important.
"We have the same mission, the same aims,” he said. “We are both willing to die for each other.”
Noor is recovering at an Afghan military hospital. Afghan and U.S. forces are searching for the man who tried to kill him.
Meanwhile, another U.S. unit has arrived in Jaji to replace Molczyk and his men.
“They seem like good guys,” Jalaluddin said. “I hope we can continue the strong relationship that we had with the last group.”
Afghan police kill 28 militants within 24 hours
KABUL, Oct. 7 (Xinhua) -- The Afghan Ministry of Interior Affairs on Sunday said that the police forces, backed by the army and the NATO-led coalition forces, have eliminated 28 Taliban militants in different provinces within the past 24 hours.
"Afghan National Police (ANP) in collaboration with the army and coalition forces launched 17 cleanup operations in Kabul, Nangarhar, Laghman, Kapisa, Kunduz, Faryab, Wardak, Ghazni and Paktika provinces, killing 28 armed Taliban militants over the past 24 hours," the ministry said in a statement.
The ANP also detained 13 suspected militants besides seizing weapons and ammunition in the above raids, the statement added, without saying if there were any casualties on the side of security forces.
The Taliban insurgents, who have been waging an insurgency of more than one decade, have yet to confirm the death of their men.
The security forces have intensified cleanup operations against Taliban and other militants throughout the country recently but the insurgents in retaliation responded by carrying out bombings and laying out ambushes against them.
On Saturday, two U.S. soldiers with the coalition were killed in an insurgent attack in eastern Afghanistan, the coalition confirmed in a statement.
Pakistan Military Blocks Anti-US Protest From Tribal Region
VOA News October 7, 2012
he Pakistani military has prevented a convoy of thousands of people with the goal of protesting U.S. drone strikes common in the country's tribal areas from reaching South Waziristan.
Authorities stopped the group just short of the tribal region's border Sunday. Pakistani cricket star turned politician Imran Khan had been leading the march, which left Islamabad Saturday.
The protest group had more than doubled to 500 cars by the time it reached Khan's hometown, Mianwali. Local and Western peace activists were traveling alongside supporters of Khan's Movement for Justice party.
Pakistan's government restricts travel to the tribal regions, where it has been battling Taliban and other Islamist militants for years. Ahead of the march, Khan had dismissed concerns that militants would target his group, but a VOA reporter said Khan was riding in an armored vehicle with guards restricting easy access to him.
Drone strikes are a contentious issue between the U.S. and Pakistan. Islamabad says the strikes violate its sovereignty, while Washington believes they are a key tool in the effort to defeat Islamist militants.
Meanwhile, the U.S. embassy in Islamabad says Pakistan has issued a general threat alert for possible terrorist attacks Sunday in Islamabad.
The embassy says in a message on its website that Pakistan's interior ministry warns the attacks could target key government buildings in downtown Islamabad and several major hotels.
Let's Leave Afghanistan; What Is the Problem?
OpEdNews.com By Sandy Shanks 06/10/2012
As many readers know I have written several articles regarding Afghanistan on OEN. They have to do with our country recognizing that we have lost still another war that we caused and was a result of sheer ignorance and arrogance.
Imagine my surprise when I read an article by Anna Mulrine, Staff writer for the Christian Science Monitor entitled Afghanistan: Why don't we leave now? It can be argued that there are a few of us sane writers left, noting that the mainstream media hardly gives a thought to Afghanistan today let alone our insurmountable problems there.
Mulrine wrote, "Why can't we just leave Afghanistan now?" That makes a bit of sense when one considers that is exactly what the Soviet Red Army did after eight years of war ending in defeat. They left with their tail between their legs rather unceremoniously. The same is true of the British Empire who tried for years during the 19th Century to tame this wild land. Going back a few thousand years Afghanistan resisted successfully other empires including Alexander, the Great. These were lessons in history that our leaders ignored, and, can you imagine the absolute absurdity of our military leaders when we invaded this country the size of Texas with 3500 ground troops in Oct. 2001!
It is not that Afghanistan has some great military machine to defend its country. She cannot afford it. She is one of the poorest countries on Earth, her military ranks at the bottom of the scale, and she is at the bottom as a threat to the national security of any nation in her region let alone the mighty U.S. a half a world away.
What Afghanistan does have are extremely high mountains with extremely steep passes that rival the Himalayas where a few can hold off an enemy regiment. From their hideouts in the mountains raids can be made on their enemies after which they scurry back to their hideaways. Combine this with their fierce independence and a total reliance on their tribe. They cannot tolerate even an Afghan central government, let alone outsiders like the British, Soviets, and Americans.
Still another factor is that Afghan society is one that lives by the gun. The average 12-year old boy in Afghanistan is a sharpshooter with an AK-47. That might be a slight exaggeration but the reader gets my point. The average Afghan has a gun, knows how to use it, and has been using it to kill others. It is a way of life in Afghanistan. Moreover, the average American views the Afghan people as being from a different planet. I cannot stress this more strongly. The Afghan people have a perfect right to live just the way they want to live. They don't have much, but who gave Westerners the right to determine their fate?
The above paragraphs mirrors another society with its high mountains, steep passes, warlike defiance, and an urge for fierce independence, the American Indian in our vast West during 19th Century. How did the U.S. military solve the Indian problem? We eradicated the Indian. After we took their lands we killed most of them, including women and children, and imprisoned the rest on reservations, many of which still exist today.
Is this how we solve the Afghan problem? Well, that is not done these days, but the two societies parallel one another. The Afghan will never accept a Western-oriented central government in Kabul with its corruption and weakness self-evident. The Afghan has never accepted a central government. They rely -- you guessed it -- on the tribe. Sound familiar? 3,000 years of history ought to prove something.
The logic of our situation is inescapable. The only way to subdue the Afghan is to eradicate him. Since we cannot possibly do that in the 21st Century, the only other option is leave now. Eleven years of war and futility ought to prove something.
To paraphrase President Clinton it depends on what the meaning of the word now is. Mulrine is a Pentagon staff writer for CSM. There is little doubt that she is familiar with the logistics of the situation in Afghanistan. There is little doubt that she did not mean dropping everything, meaning our trucks, APC'S, tanks, computers and what all else, and head for the exits. No one is suggesting that. What Mulrine is talking about is a directive for an orderly strategic withdrawal from the region "now," meaning the very near future. No other recourse makes sense. Americans have had it with Afghanistan.
To illustrate, Obama and Romney rarely mention Afghanistan. This forgotten war has even been all but forgotten by our two Presidential candidates.
Following the statement made above, Mulrine added, "It's the unspoken question that top Pentagon officials are endeavoring to answer in their assurances that America must stay its course in the war-torn country." What follows is the usual pious platitudes from a military high command that is facing defeat and their political cronies. The comments are similar to Hitler who proclaimed that a German victory was inevitable as German cities were burning while his armies were retreating on every front.
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Martin Dempsey, stressed recently that the surge's purpose was "to buy us some time on some Taliban initiatives," he said, adding "and to buy us some space to grow the Afghan security forces." Well, that did not work.
But Dempsey says it did with a caveat that suggests Obama's plan did not work. Read between the lines to understand what Dempsey said. "The surge had its intended effect. I think it was an effort that was worth the cost -- and don't forget, it did have its cost."
Despite Dempsey's feel good remarks that fell well short of being encouraging, there is this indisputable fact. With the sharp increase of green-on-blue attacks on US forces, the joint Afghan-American patrols that are a key part of the training mission were suspended, deemed too dangerous to risk American lives. The good general failed to mention that fact.
The innocuous comments continue. The dunce cap for obsequious remarks is awarded to Anthony Cordesman, an Afghanistan analyst at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, who estimates that it will take "at least 13 months to clear the equipment we've got deployed. People forget that there are very real physical limits. We cannot leave the things behind at random -- they're worth too much and are potentially dangerous." True, we cannot leave behind our tanks, APC's, drone aircraft, trucks, computers, and God knows what all else, but we can leave behind airfields and mega bases that we built to the tune of hundreds of billion dollars. His remark implies that he knows that the vast majority of Americans and our leaders want out yesterday. But Cordesman says we have to wait at least 13 months. That is total nonsense and an insult to our military. If our military forces in Afghanistan got the word we are leaving, gather up your sh*t, and let's go, it would take two months, three months tops. Folks on th
e home front are not the only ones who want us to leave now.
But Cordesman was not through with making an absolute fool of himself. According to Mulrine, "The larger question, he adds, is whether it is strategically desirable to leave Afghanistan now. With a focus on tamping down corruption and with a couple more years work with the Afghan national security forces, "I think what you can accomplish is a reasonable chance that the Afghan government and economy can hold together with some chance of a coherent structure in Kabul, and a reasonable chance that the Afghan Army can be strong enough that, with some cooperation, it can hold insurgent forces at bay,' Cordesman says." He is dreaming. He is still not through.
"Can we guarantee a future? No," he adds. "Yes, it has been an incredibly costly and frustrating decade . And yes, we do not seem to have clear plans for the future."
However, he adds, "We can create a situation where we can show the world that we were not defeated, and at the same time avoid a decision that would deprive Afghanistan of any chance of stability." In all cases emphasis is mine. Cordesman fails to note that the lack of "stability," which is a euphemism for the Afghan's 3,000-year history of distaining a central government, preferring the tribe to provide security along with local and social needs, is a matter of their choice, not ours. They don't want what Americans want for them. Want proof. Over eleven years of fruitless war, and our leaders are too dumb to have learned that simple fact. The "show the world" comment is incomprehensible at best and illustrates that Afghans do not live in a different world. Cordesman does.
I do not necessarily wish to pick on Cordesman. He was simply a convenient target thanks to Ms. Mulrine. He is representative of the ludicrous remarks we hear from the President to the Pentagon publicity strategists to the generals. He was merely a servant to his leaders. They all fail to realize that Americans have learned of the follies of bad wars like Iraq and Afghanistan. Our leaders simply have not learned that lesson yet. Only God knows when they will.
In the meantime the actual enemy, the supposedly declining Taliban, has surged in its southern homeland. They recently launched the most devastating attack on a military base of the war, resulting in at least $200 million in allied loses. It's their first attack that might even faintly be compared to those the Vietnamese launched against American bases in the 1960s.
Earlier, I stated that the joint Afghan-American patrols that are a key part of the training mission have been suspended, deemed too dangerous to risk American lives. Those patrols were recently reinstated. Guess what happened next.
After a heavy weekend of violence, in still another green-on-blue incident a suicide bomber attacked NATO and Afghan forces, killing at least 14 on Oct 1st in the southeastern town of Khost. The attack came just two days after the 2,000th American died in Afghanistan in a green-on-blue confrontation between US and Afghan soldiers southwest of Kabul.
The Christian Science Monitor reported recently that while the US has seen a consistent drop in the rate of fatalities starting last year, attacks by Afghan soldiers and police on NATO forces have become a high-profile problem with no obvious solution.
Gen. John Allen, the top US commander in Afghanistan, expressed his frustration about insider attacks and warned that more should be expected. He stated, ""I'm mad as hell about them, to be honest with you. We're going to get after this. It reverberates everywhere, across the United States. You know, we're willing to sacrifice a lot for this campaign. But we're not willing to be murdered for it."
"At some level, when you make a decision to continue waging a war, losing lives and money, you make a decision that hopefully what you can get in exchange for that is worth it," says Stephen Biddle, professor of political science and international affairs at George Washington University and a former adviser to retired Gen. David Petraeus.
"At some point it will reach the point where what we get is no longer worth American lives."
Amen
Tom Engelhardt of TomDispatch and Arthur Bright , staff writer for the Christian Science Monitor contributed to this report.
Navy SEALs serve as buffer between Afghans and Taliban
USA TODAY By Carmen Gentile, Special for USA TODAY October 7. 2012
SHAH WALI KOT, KANDAHAR PROVINCE, Afghanistan - The use of special operations forces has been a contentious issue for Afghan leaders, who in recent years have been critical of "night raids," which Afghans say result in many civilian casualties.
The helicopter landed shortly after dawn on a remote hilltop in Kandahar province.
A combined force of U.S. Navy SEALs and Afghan commandos poured out and crouched in defensive positions as the copter's rotor kicked up a bank of thick, impenetrable dust.
When the air cleared, the men peered into the distance for assailants. Seeing none, they headed on foot to a small village to look for what they came for: "high-value" members of the Taliban and caches of bombmaking material.
Special operations like these will be crucial to the future security in Afghanistan once conventional fighting forces pull back as ordered by President Obama, U.S. military leaders say. They will work with specially trained Afghans to prevent militants from gaining back territory won by the coalition.
Maj Gen. Tony Thomas is head of the recently created Special Operations Joint Task Forces Afghanistan (SOJTF-A), which aligns under one command all 23 NATO countries with special operations soldiers in Afghanistan. Forces from the United States, Europe, the Middle East and Australia now work together "for a potential long-term security strategy," Thomas says.
As NATO forces wind down their conventional troops, now down to about half of the 100,000 number of a year ago, the Pentagon believes that the most elite soldiers in the coalition will need to remain beyond the complete withdrawal scheduled for the end of 2014 to prevent a rollback.
"Nothing is absolute, but we anticipate being here for the long haul," says SOJTF-A spokesman Lt. Col. Todd Harrell, emphasizing that a longer-term presence of special operations forces "must first be discussed with the Afghan government."
U.S. special operations troops in Afghanistan include SEALs, the Army's Green Berets and other highly trained units. The use of special operations forces has been a contentious issue for Afghan leaders, who in recent years have been critical of "night raids," which Afghans say result in many civilian casualties.
Ministry of Defense spokesman Gen. Zahir Azimi would not comment on the possible presence of special operations forces beyond 2014, though he says the current special operations missions are "good at fighting the insurgency as long as Afghans are in the lead.
On this mission, they are.
Afghan and U.S. troops walk single file along a barely visible footpath in hopes of avoiding buried mines, known as improvised explosive devices or IEDs. Earlier this year, a member of this SEAL team lost an eye when an IED detonated in a compound they were searching.
On this day, the troops find a few explosives. They place them outside the village and detonate them, and the blast is powerful enough that the soldiers are showered with small rocks even though they are hundreds of yards away.
No Taliban leaders are found. The SEALs know militant fighters are in the area from the Taliban radio chatter they are monitoring as they conduct their mission.
"Insurgents are saying they are trying to get together to attack us," says the SEAL team commander, a young lieutenant. The SEALs are permitted to talk to USA TODAY but are barred from identifying themselves — to maintain their secrecy and keep their families from risk of a terrorist attack.
"They talk a big game on the radio, but they probably won't do anything," he adds nonchalantly while his men keep a watchful eye for gunmen along the nearby river valley and their Afghan counterparts interview locals and search homes.
The SEALs have pegged the village a "facilitators' area," or a community that assists the Taliban, usually involuntarily.
A small collection of mud-brick compounds dot the sloping, scorched hills of this southern province where the Taliban movement began. Villagers tell the Afghan troops that there are Taliban in the area but have little information to give on their whereabouts.
"They (Taliban) threaten to cut off our heads and shoot us," says one man questioned by the commandos. "They tell us to 'grab our weapons and fight with us.' "
Every SEAL mission is conducted with the Afghan commandos, notes Harrell, saying that the missions provide valuable training for Afghanistan's elite soldiers to one day shoulder alone all security responsibilities.
Capt. Ibrahim Sherzai, company commander for the Afghan commandos working with SEALs in Kandahar, agrees.
"For the commandos to improve, we need the Americans to keep helping us with our missions," Sherzai says.
He says his men are more than capable of "seeking out a target and destroying" targets on their own but often need the backup of the SEALs and their help training more recruits.
"I can't say for how long we'll need their help, but if you look at the situation in Afghanistan, we're going to need them here for a while," he says. "We need them to keep giving the commandos the best training they can."
The SEALs are considered perhaps the most versatile and well-trained force in the U.S. military. About 70% of applicants wash out before completing the more than year-long course that tests their physical and mental stamina.
"There are a lot of things we do in training designed to break you down," says a SEAL lieutenant.
He recalls long hours carrying a giant log with other SEAL candidates along a sandy beach and going days with little sleep. The exercises demand teamwork and help weed out weaker candidates.
"They induce physical stress to induce mental stress," he says. "The training is ultimately designed to find and mold guys that can handle it when the bullets start flying."
The SEALs trace their origins to 1942, when the U.S. military needed to improve its ability to defend beachheads and mount offensive operations in World War II. It created the Amphibious Scout and Raider School to train elite soldiers.
The SEALs were not formally conceived until two decades later when Arleigh Burke, former chief of naval operations, recommended to President Kennedy the creation of a counterinsurgency naval unit to conduct high-risk, small force missions in Vietnam that could perform in sea, air or land, hence SEALs.
Many experts say that special forces will need to remain a presence in Afghanistan to ensure the Afghans can maintain security for themselves.
Afghan commandos rely on coalition special operations forces not only for training and backup, but for transport and other logistical needs necessary to prevail in battle. Sherzai noted that Afghans are being trained to fly helicopters and operate other advanced equipment, but they still lack the resources to operate in remote parts of Afghanistan, where the Taliban is most prevalent.
"They still have some crippling logistics issues," says Maj. Fernando Lujan, a Green Beret who is currently a visiting fellow at the Center for New American Security in Washington.
The SEALs based here in Camp Simmons say they are up for the mission and want to ensure their Afghan comrades succeed.
A SEAL from this particular unit, whose mission was witnessed by USA TODAY, was killed a few days later in a crash of a Black Hawk helicopter. Seven American troops and four Afghans died in the crash.
The SEALs here know that the task they've been given means any mission they go on could be the one in which they die. Never letting one's guard down is one of the best ways to survive, they say.
"You've got to treat every compound you enter, every mission you go on, like there is someone there that is trying to kill you," says the petty officer.
2 US Soldiers Killed in Afghan Attack
TOLOnews.com Sunday, 07 October 2012
Two US soldiers were killed during an insurgent attack in eastern Afghanistan on Saturday, the US military said in a statement.
The US military gave no further details.
No group including the Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack.
More than 2,000 US soldiers have been killed since 2001 in the Afghan war.
Nearly 270 US soldiers have been killed this year, along with 39 British and 43 other Nato-led troops, according to Icasualties.org, which keeps track of the number of foreign troop casualties in the country.
It comes after US Defence Secretary Leon Panetta on Friday said that the progress in Afghanistan has cost thousands of military lives and it would be helpful if Afghan President Hamid Karzai expressed gratitude for that sacrifice.
"We have made progress in Afghanistan because there are men and women in uniform who have been willing to fight and die for Afghanistan's sovereignty and their right to govern and secure themselves," he told reporters.
He was responding to Karzai's apparent criticism on Thursday where he urged the US and Nato to combat terrorism in the region, saying the focus should be to eliminate it at its roots – which are not in Afghanistan.
"The US and Nato should go to the places where the roots of the terrorism exist. They are saying one thing but acting contrary to that," he said in at a press conference in Kabul.
There are around 117,000 international soldiers, mostly Americans, fighting insurgents in Afghanistan. The troops will leave Afghanistan by the end of 2014 after the Afghan soldiers take full security responsibility of the country.
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