U.S. anoints Afghanistan a ‘major non-NATO ally’

Yahoo! News ^ | July 5, 2012 | Olivier Knox

[robowombat]

U.S. anoints Afghanistan a ‘major non-NATO ally’ By Olivier Knox, Yahoo! News |

Afghan President Hamid Karzai and President Barack Obama share a handshake on the sidelines of the NATO summit … Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Saturday formally designated Afghanistan a "major non-NATO ally," setting the stage for tighter military cooperation even as international troops are on a path to withdraw from the war-torn country by the end of 2014. Clinton announced the new alliance to diplomats at the U.S. Embassy in Kabul, according to the Associated Press. She was in Afghanistan to meet with President Hamid Karzai. The White House had informed Karzai of its plans when President Barack Obama made a secret trip to Afghanistan in May, on the anniversary of Osama bin Laden's death. At the time, a White House statement said the move would "provide a long-term framework for security and defense cooperation." The list of major non-NATO allies includes Argentina, Australia, Bahrain, Egypt, Israel, Japan, Jordan, Kuwait, Morocco, New Zealand, Pakistan, the Philippines, South Korea and Thailand. Notably, these countries are eligible for priority delivery of military hardware and can get U.S. government help to buy arms and equipment.

[doc1019]

BS, either you are a member of NATO or you are not. This sounds like our president is ass kissing and bowing to a foreign power yet again. And, gee, it happens to be a muslim country ... go figure.

[Kickass Conservative]

Does this mean THEIR Soldiers (I know) won’t murder OUR Soldiers anymore?

[robowombat]

If you read to the end you will see there are a string of such countries. The catch is the others such as Thailand or New Zealand actually can claim to be functioning nations. Astan is becoming a bigger version of Somalia with various tribes and war lords ruling slices of territory. This sort of proclamation of alliance with out a true treaty such as the one we have Japan or South Korea is a bastard concoction. Unfortunately it lets the foreign policy wonks have an institutionalized excuse to keep a very visible US footprint there.

[mylife]

Whats a little backstabbing when there is all that oil to exploit!

Wait... they don’t have anything we want.

[mylife]

Afghanistan has been a collection of thiefdoms run by warlords since the beginning of time.

[Windcatcher]

They really need a seaport. For a miniscule part of the money we’ve spent there we could have contracted the Japanese to build a 4mi x 4mi island 13 miles off the Pakistani coast and given Afghanistan a seaport and airport. With smart tax policy they could rake in a bundle and not have to rely so heavily on opium.

[Olog-hai]

So the Taliban can take it over?

[Windcatcher]

Good point, though I would expect it to be pretty easy to defend against the Taliban, especially if the port included a small U.S. Naval base like the British one in Gibraltar.

[mylife]

Afghanistan is land locked.

[Windcatcher]

I know. Hence the island...Gibraltarbis physically separate from Britain, but it’s 100% sovereign British territory. Same idea here.

[Ancesthntr]

$hitholestan an ally? Clearly, Obama is still snorting coke.

[Mikey_1962]

I don’t want another American soldier killed to support this waste land or it’s corrupt inbred tribes.

Ef’em.

[Oztrich Boy]

Situation as bad as that?

[piasa]

1933 : (AFGHANISTAN : ZAHIR SHAH ASSUMES THE THRONE; HE RULES UNTIL OVERTHROWN BY A COUSIN AND THE COMMUNIST PARTY IN 1973; DURING HIS 40 YEAR REIGN AFGHANISTAN BUILT INFRASTRUCTURE; A UNIVERSITY, SCHOOLS, HOSPITALS, ETC)

1934: (US RECOGNIZES GOVERNMENT OF AFGHANISTAN ) The US formally recognizes Afghanistan’s government; Afghanistan had earlier been created as a buffer between British India and Russia. When the British left the region in 1947 Afghanistan’s tribes held together out of fear of the USSR.

1953 : (AFGHANISTAN : MASSOOD later aka THE LION OF PANDSHIR IS BORN) Ahmed Shah Mas’ud was born to an army family in 1953 in the Panjshir Valley north of the Afghan capital Kabul. His father was a colonel in the Afghan Army and enrolled his son at Kabul’s Lycee Istiqlal High School. Upon graduation Mas’ud joined Kabul’s Polytechnic Institute. -—— Ahmad Shah Massood (1953- September 9, 2001), Afgha.com ^ | September 9, 2004 | Sunil Sainis/Laxman Bahroo

JANUARY 1965 : (AFGHANISTAN : AFGHAN COMMUNIST PARTY {See LEFTIES} IS FORMED, PARTLY BY KARMAL) The Afghan Communist Party was secretly formed in January. Babrak Karmal is one of the founders.

SEPTEMBER 1965 : (AFGHANISTAN : FIRST NATIONWIDE ELECTIONS RESULT IN A COMMUNIST PARTY “COMMUNITY ACTIVIST” KARMAL GETTING ELECTED TO PARLIAMENT) First nationwide elections under the new constitution. ; Karmal was elected to the Parliament, later instigates riots. ; [King?] Zahir and Yussof form second government

1973 : (KING ZAHIR SHAH IS DEPOSED AND EXILED BY A COUSIN- PRIME MINISTER DAOUD KHAN, WITH THE AID OF THE MILITARY AND THE AFGHAN COMMUNIST PARTY; A REPUBLIC IS DECLARED)

[octex]

AFG...home of the Taliban. Also notice that Argentina and Egypt are listed as allies by Obama’s administration. These people running the US are completely whacked!

[Conservative Vermont Vet]

MEANWHILE.....

WOMAN AND TWO CHILDREN BEHEADED

A 30-year-old woman and two of her children were beheaded overnight in Afghanistan's east, police said, in what appeared to be the latest in a rapidly growing trend of so-called honour killings.

Police said they suspected the woman Serata's divorced husband of barging into her house in the capital of Ghazni province and murdering her, alongside their eight-year-old son and nine-year-old daughter.

ALSO ON JULY 4TH, THERE WAS THIS REPORT FROM THE BBC:

An individual wearing Afghan army uniform shot and wounded five Nato soldiers in eastern Afghanistan on Tuesday, the alliance says.

The five, believed to be American, are receiving medical treatment. The extent of their injuries is not known.

AND, THIS ONE ON JULY 3RD FROM IANS:

Kabul, July 3 — The arrest of two children and a teenager with bombs and remote-controlled devices in Afganistan's [sic] former Taliban stronghold of Kandahar has sparked fears that the militant outfit could be training more children as suicide bombers.

The children were aged eight and 12 and the teenager was 17 years old, Xinhua reported citing Kandahar province spokesman Jawed Faisal.

And that was all just this past week....

Way past the time to pull all of our Troops out that 3rd World Islamic Craphole and let the barbarian, practitioners of the "Religion of Pieces" revert back to their (Moo-Ham-Ud's) 7th C. lifestyle as they war against each other and kill one another.

Feel sorry for the women and handful of Kafur (non-believers) but we ain't ever going to change their way of thinking as long as Af-Ghan (thanks Bush) is an Islamic Republic with Sharia being its "Controlling Authority!"

[Eric in the Ozarks]

Just don’t let em get behind you with a gun...

[Mormon Cricket]

The Karzai government will fall within days of our leaving.
Hillary got the terms under which we will be allowed to leave in her meeting with the SCO represented by Lavrov. No more ammo or weapons over land routes thru Uzbek or Pak. 50 k vehicles and 100 k shipping containers need to leave. They will be forfeit. I’ll be concerned for the safety of the last 10k troops to leave.

The only question will be does the Taliban terminate the opium production after we leave the way they did in 2000.

Mission Accomplished.

[fallujah-nuker]

They really need a seaport. For a miniscule part of the money we’ve spent there we could have contracted the Japanese to build a 4mi x 4mi island 13 miles off the Pakistani coast and given Afghanistan a seaport and airport. With smart tax policy they could rake in a bundle and not have to rely so heavily on opium.

Just start killing 1000 of them for every one of us. They killed 3000 of our on 9-11, pay them back with 3,000,000 Pashtuns. End this do-good kinder gentler compassionate war crap and go Roman on them. Rome once tried to pay a Gallic chieftain named Brennus, who proceeded to cheat them, and placed his sword upon the scales used to calculate the ransom.

Marcus Furius Camillus arrived and proclaimed "Rome buys its peace with iron, not gold." Since 9-11 we've been trying to buy peace with gold, we should be using iron as the tender.