Raid In Afghanistan Kills 3 Civilians
Along With 15 Suspected Militants; 2 Days After Ambush Killing 6 GIs
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U.S. soldiers pray at a Veterans Day memorial service, Nov. 11, 2007, at Camp Eggers in Kabul, Afghanistan. (AP)
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U.S. soldiers at Camp Eggers in Kabul, Afghanistan, take time out for a moment of camaraderie, and a photo to remember the day, Nov. 11, 2007. (AP)
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An Afghan security policeman stands guard as the smoke rises from a fire of confiscated drugs and alcohol on the outskirts of the city in Herat, Afghanistan, Nov, 11, 2007. The production of opium is known to have increased over the last year. (AP)
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Tribal leaders in the Dah Sabz district of Kabul, Afghanistan, watch as a militia turns over its weapons in a Nov. 11, 2007, ceremony as part of the U.S.-backed program for disarming illegal militias. (AP)
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A thousand students in dress reminiscent of the Taliban turned out Nov. 11, 2007, in Jalalabad, Afghanistan, demanding the death penalty for former journalist Mohammad Ghaws Zalmai, accused of insulting the Quran. (AP)
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Fast Facts Afghanistan Learn about the people, economy and history.
The troops were raiding compounds suspected of housing bomb makers in the Garmser district of Helmand province on Sunday when militants attacked them with heavy fire, the statement said. Coalition forces responded with small-arms fire, killing several militants, it said.
"During one of the engagements, several militants barricaded themselves in a building on the compound and engaged coalition forces with a high volume of gunfire. Coalition forces used a single grenade which killed the attacking militants," the statement said. "However, the building the militants were fighting from collapsed."
After the clash, troops recovered the bodies of a woman and two children from the collapsed building, along with several militants and their weapons, it said. Another woman was wounded during the battle and taken to a medical facility for treatment. Two suspected militants were detained for questioning, the coalition said.
"We would like to express our heartfelt condolences to the families and loved ones of the deceased," said Maj. Chris Belcher, a coalition spokesman.
"When militants knowingly engage coalition forces with innocent people in the background, it only shows the extremists' complete disregard for innocent lives," Belcher said in a statement.
Civilian casualties have incited resentment and demonstrations against U.S. and NATO forces in the past, though officials blame militants for using civilian homes as cover during clashes. President Hamid Karzai has pleaded with Western forces to do all they can to prevent such deaths.
The raid by coalition forces came two days after a Friday ambush on U.S. forces high in the mountains of eastern Afghanistan.
Six U.S. soldiers were killed when insurgents ambushed their foot patrol. A military spokesman says they were on their way back from a meeting with village elders late Friday afternoon in Nuristan province when they were attacked with rocket propelled grenades and gunfire.
"They were attacked from several enemy positions at the same time," said Lt. Col. David Accetta, a spokesman for NATO's International Security Assistance Force and the U.S. military. "It was a complex ambush."
Eight Americans and 11 Afghans were wounded. For the U.S., the 14 total U.S. casualties is the highest number of wounded and killed from a battle in Afghanistan so far this year.
Fighter aircraft and troops using artillery or mortars at nearby outposts fired on the militants' positions, Accetta said. It wasn't immediately clear how many militants were involved in the ambush, he said.
Mohammad Daoud Nadim, Nuristan deputy police chief, said the ambush happened in the remote province's Waygal district, about 40 miles from the border with Pakistan, which militants are known to use as a sanctuary. Nadim said he had no information on any casualties among the militants.
Nuristan has seen heavy fighting in recent months. Two U.S. soldiers were killed and 13 wounded by a militant ambush in July, while militants disguised in Afghan army uniforms wounded 11 U.S. troops and killed two Afghan soldiers in August.
Friday's attack was the deadliest incident for U.S. troops in Afghanistan since a Chinook crashed in February in Zabul province, killing eight Americans. Officials ruled out enemy fire as the cause of that crash.
Violence in Afghanistan this year has been the deadliest since the Taliban's ouster. More than 5,800 people, mostly militants, have died so far this year in insurgency-related violence, according to an Associated Press count based on figures from Afghan and Western officials.
© MMVII The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
- Where are those 250 Taliban that CBS said were surrounded the other day? Did they just dissappear back into the propaganda mill?
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- It is amazing to still see a link entitled War on Terror. Doesn''t everyone know that terror is a strategy? Do they still think that we don''t know this whole thing was cooked up by the Neo Con men who want American hegemony? Do they still think we do not know that they planned and carried out the demolition of the World Trade Center? It''s almost embarrassing to still see this term.
By the media still using this fraudulent term, they show exactly which side they are on. The United States oiligarchy who are the terrorists by starting and continuing wars for oil. After all, they are the ones who are profiteering, the big multi-national oil/media/arms corporations. - Reply to this comment
- Revenge, eye for an eye, for every yin there is yang, and the beat goes on.
Bush''s Afghanistan crusade will last until the Army becomes the Army of One, literally. Congress won''t stop it, because it is the Holy War on Terrorism.
Meanwhile, we read about it, and then go on with our own lives like it was just another commercial. - Reply to this comment
- GLOBAL WARMING: A GLOBALIST LIE
When I consider the claim that we should give-up our civil liberties in order to protect ourselves from terrorism, or that we should pay a global Carbon Tax administered and enforced by the U.N. (one world government), because mankind is somehow to blame for global warming, two quotes come to mind:
"If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State."
- Joseph Goebbels, Nazi Propagandist
"We have nothing to fear but fear itself, and those who would exploit our fear for power and their own personal, selfish, cynical gain."
- Franklin D. Roosevelt
Earth is heating up lately, but so are other planets in our solar system. It''s scientific fact. The sun''s increased activity is the common thread which links all of these warming events. Fluctuations in solar activity effect the climate on Earth and other planets, and always will. No reputable scientist could deny that increased Sun activity causes an uptick in Earth''s temperatures. Man''s impact on the planet is exaggerated. All 6 billion people on Earth could fit into an area no bigger than New England. - Reply to this comment
- CLINTON CAMP PLANTS GLOBAL WARMING QUESTIONS
The Clinton campaign has admitted to planting questions at a college speaking engagement in Iowa. They have confirmed that a campaign staffer approached a student to ask Senator Clinton a question about global warming during a campaign stop in Newton, Iowa, on Nov. 6. The story was first reported by Patrick Caldwell, a junior at Grinnell College and the features editor of The Scarlet and Black college newspaper. He reported that student Muriel Gallo-Chasanoff was approached by the Clinton campaign to ask certain question about global warming and about the need for a global Carbon Tax. Gallo-Chasanoff also said that she "noted that staffers prompted Clinton to call on her and another student who had been approached before the event. Some of the questions asked were confusing and clearly off-message." Clinton Campaign spokesperson Mo Elleithee told ABC News that "on this occasion a member of our staff did discuss a possible question about Sen. Clinton''s global warming plan at a forum. This is not standard policy and will not be repeated again." The staffer still remains with the Clinton campaign, but they would not reveal the person''s name. The Clinton campaign refused to comment on whether this was the only time they have planted questions among audience members about the issue of global warming. - Reply to this comment
- YOU''RE A FROG IN A POT
My fellow Americans need to open their eyes to the fact that our republic, along with The Constitution upon which it was founded, is being flushed-down the toilet by our nations'' bought and paid for politicians and media. While the Oligarchs warn and incite fear in the sheeple about the prospect of terrorism, they at the same time leave our borders wide open, and then conduct illegal wars overseas that do nothing but incite the terrorism which their Orwellian Laws like the Patriot Act and the John Warner Defense Authorization Act pretend to protect us from. Wake up America! It''s not about protecting you from terrorism, or Global Warming, or any of that other fear-mongering garbage the sold-out, mainstream media feeds you 24/7. It''s about feeding the bankers and the military industrial complex, and facilitating the global elite''s ability to ratchet-down control over the American people, placing us into a total control grid where they can surveille, track and control everywhere we go and everything we do. It''s the groundwork for tyranny. It''s the New World Order plan of Bush, Clinton, Edwards, McCain, Giuliani, et.al., being executed quite beautifully. You''re a frog in a pot: In order to cook a frog, you don''t throw him into a pot of boiling water. If you do, he''ll resist and jump-out. What you do instead is, you turn the heat-up REAL SLOW, and by the time the water is boiling he won''t be able to jump out anymore, because it''s too late--he''s already doomed. - Reply to this comment
- CLINTON MAKES PRESIDENT DICTATOR
With the full support of Senators Clinton, Obama and McCain, President Bush recently signed into Law the John Warner Defense Authorization Act, which, according to Senator Leahy (VT), will actually "encourage the President to declare Martial Law." It does so by revising the Insurrection Act, a Laws which limits the President''s ability to deploy troops within the United States. The Insurrection Act has historically, along with the Posse Comitatus Act, helped to enforce strict prohibitions on military involvement in domestic Law enforcement. With one cloaked swipe of his pen, Bush has now undone all of those prohibitions. The John Warner Defense Authorization Act, which was signed by the President in an unpublicized ceremony, allows the President to declare a "public emergency," suspend Congress; The Constitution; and to take control of state-based National Guard units without the consent of your Governor or local authorities, in order to "suppress public disorder." President Bush seized this unprecedented power on the very same day that he signed the equally odious Military Commissions Act. The two Laws compliment one another. One allows for torture and detention abroad of those who dissent and are stripped of their citizenship, while the other seeks to enforce acquiescence at home by allowing the President to order the military onto our streets in a domestic Law enforcement role, which is already being done. Vote for Liberty. Vote for Ron Paul. - Reply to this comment
- DEMOCRATS HOODWINKED BY HILLARY
Sadly, even though Clinton voted for the war in Iraq, and a host of Laws aimed at removing civil liberties, Democrats are so blinded by her cult of personality that I predict they will overwhelmingly vote to put her crime family back into office. While I''ve made some progress in educating Liberals as to the phony staged consensus of the left-right paradigm, the fact remains that a majority of Democrats still see the White House as some kind of political Super Bowl, where the success of their "team" is the be all and end all - to the expense of America as a whole. The Punch and Judy show theater that was the "troop surge" debate in the Senate characterizes Hillary''s role in hoodwinking Americans perfectly. The debate is framed as not whether the U.S. should get out of the Middle-East altogether, but the relative minutia of whether to feed thousands of more troops into the meat grinder or not. A Clinton presidency will mean more war, more dead Americans, and a further desecration of the tattered shreds of what''s left of our Constitution. Clinton is the ultimate global elitist and represents the Democrats supposed base: the poor and downtrodden, about as much as Lindsay Lohan represents grace and dignity. I''m sure she informed the likes of David Rockefeller and Queen Beatrix as to her presidential aspirations during her last visit to attend the Bilderberger conference. Vote for a REAL AMERICAN who fights against one world government. Vote for Ron Paul. - Reply to this comment
- BILDERBERGERS RULE
The Bilderberg Group is a secretive gathering of global power brokers, which includes Hillary Clinton, and a virtual who''s who of other folks whose names you will recognize (Search Wikipedia: "Bilderberg Attendees"), has inspired layers of ridicule. In recent times, the deeds laid at the group''s doorstep have included the creation of the EU, the Iraq war, and the group''s current efforts to create a North American Union, which will erase U.S. borders and sovereignty. Their agenda: economic and political domination; one world government; and world population reduction. After it was leaked that a speech by John Edwards at their meeting in Italy, was one reason for his selection as John Kerry''s vice-presidential running mate in 2000, people began to ask, "Are the Bilderbergers now shaping the worldwide political scene?" Over 130 of the world''s most powerful monarchs, politicians and business leaders attend the annual, invitation-only gatherings in order to to discuss and orchestrate public policy worldwide. The hotels involved are closed-off to other guests and reporters. Guards are placed around the perimeter, and attendees promise to keep quiet about what they hear and say. "They do not have to sign anything, but they understand that they do not talk," said Maja Banck-Polderman, the group''s Secretary. Tony Gosling, a British reporter who has followed the group says, "I think that a forum where so many rich and powerful people meet should be open to public scrutiny." - Reply to this comment
- RON PAUL WILL RESTORE U.S. SOVEREIGNTY
All of the trade deals and world government organizations, which all of the presidential candidates support (except Ron Paul), such as the ICC, NAFTA, GATT, WTO, and CAFTA, are all a major threat to our nation''s sovereignty. They transfer power from our government to unelected foreign elites. The ICC wants to try our soldiers as war criminals. Both the WTO and CAFTA could force Americans to get a prescription to take herbs and vitamins. The WTO has forced Congress to change our laws to meet their needs, and not our own. If anything, the WTO makes trade relations worse by giving foreign competitors a new way to attack U.S. jobs. The NAFTA superhighway, being built by a Spanish company, is just one part of a plan to erase our borders and create the North American Union, a single nation State like the EU, out of Canada, the U.S. and Mexico, with a new, unelected bureaucracy and money system. Forget about controlling immigration under the NAU scheme. There won''t be any borders anymore, or a free America. Our limited, constitutional government will be gone forever. Let''s not forget the UN either. It wants to impose a direct Carbon Tax on us. Ron Paul successfully fought this move in Congress last year, but if we are going to stop ongoing attempts of this world government body to rule over us, we need someone in the White House who knows how to say "No." We must withdraw from any organizations or treaty that infringes upon our nation''s sovereignty. - Reply to this comment
Author Thomas Friedman on Obama's Afghanistan plan and the war on terror.




