Richard Colvin, who was second in command at Canada's Kabul embassy in 2006 and 2007, said that Afghans swept up in security sweeps by Canadian troops during that time were routinely handed over to the Afghan intelligence services. "According to our information, the likelihood is that all the Afghans we handed over were tortured," Colvin told Canada's parliament. "For interrogators in Kandahar, it was standard operating procedure. SEE ALSO: http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/afghanmission/article/728958--eu-diplomat-backs-claims-on-torture

"The United States will do its part to reduce corruption in Afghanistan by examining its own contracts and projects, even as it is demanding the same from the Afghan government, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Friday."

The two countries' divergent views of the threat posed by Islamist extremists, and the Obama administration's efforts to press Pakistan to move against groups that menace Afghanistan have produced strains between the two countries and between Pakistan's civilian government and its powerful military and Inter Services Intelligence agency — and a growing drumbeat of Pakistani allegations about alleged nefarious CIA activities in Pakistan.

"...he's looking for an alternative. It took Obama this long to figure it out, Walt told me, because "I don't think this was an issue he had mastered before he became president. I think that early in the administration, most of the advice he was getting was from one side. It was mostly coming from people who were sort of invested in the mission."

I put together a little visual aid for you to use in conversations with random wingnuts on the oh-so-serious topic of how Obama is "dithering" on deciding on a strategy to address the flaming paper bag of dog excrement (i.e., the war in Afghanistan) that Bush laid on Obama's doorstep. Enjoy!

"But are you soliciting advise from stateside civic groups of experience and repute that represent many Americans? Or from genuine experts on that country such as Ashraf Ghani—a former American professor and later respected member of the Karzai government before his departure to other positions in that country?"

After three decades of war, Afghanistan remains one of the poorest and least developed countries in the world. It is also one of the most corrupt. Unemployment stands at 40 percent and more than half the country live below the poverty line. On top of that, violence is at its highest levels since U.S.-backed Afghan forces toppled the Taliban in late 2001. The report, based on a survey of more than 700 ordinary Afghans by British charity Oxfam and several local aid groups, found that 70 percent of people questioned viewed poverty and unemployment as the main drivers of the conflict.

On his recent visit to Asia, President Barack Obama claims that deliberations on policy changes in Afghanistan are ongoing, and that no decision will be forthcoming for some time. On a side note, Secretary of State Clinton has left the U.S. entourage in east Asia and is enroute to Afghanistan as part of a diplomatic anti-corruption effort with Afghani President Karzai.

Speaking to the House Armed Services Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations, Clark said American leaders should strengthen the national partnership with Pakistan -- including sharing intelligence regarding al Qaeda operations -- and promote economic development in Afghanistan to undercut the drug trade fueled by growing poppies. Gen. Clark, a former Democratic presidential candidate, praised President Barack Obama for taking his time in developing an Afghanistan strategy and said that any troop increase should wait until a firm endgame has been establsihed for U.S. Involvement in the country.

"It is the problem of an imperialist military built solely to serve the profit system. Contractor industrial complex All U.S. aid, both military and what is labeled “civilian,” is funneled through thousands and thousands of contractors, subcontractors and sub-subcontractors. None of these U.S. corporate middlemen are even slightly interested in the development of Afghanistan or Iraq. Their only immediate aim is to turn a hefty superprofit as quickly as possible, with as much skim and double billing as possible. For a fee they will provide everything from hired guns, such as Blackwater mercenaries, to food service workers, mechanics, maintenance workers and long-distance truck drivers."

Afghan political analysts observe that Ghazanfar and Zahid Walid are striking examples of the multimillion-dollar business conglomerates, financed by American as well as Afghan tax dollars and connected to powerful political figures, that have, since the fall of the Taliban in 2001, emerged as part of a pervasive culture of corruption here. Nasrullah Stanikzai, a professor of law and political science at Kabul University, says of the companies in the pocket of the vice-president: "Everybody knows who is Ghazanfar. Everybody knows who is Zahid Walid. The [government elite] directly or indirectly have companies, licenses, and sign contracts. But corruption is not confined just to the Afghans. The international community bears a share of this blame."

[FWIW, this is an extended comment I made to Selise in my last FDL diary.] Selise, why am I the only person in America wearing a black arm band? A woman, an acquaintance, yesterday asked me if I had a death in my family. I said the arm band was for my country. I put it on back in mid-May for the illegal torture travesty, vowing as soon as the Obama administration cleaned up that travesty I would take it off. I told her I also keep it on now for the travesties of the wars. So many deaths of Americans and Middle Eastern peoples for power and money. Not for helping humanity. I told her I am also now wearing it for the 45,000 premature American deaths each year for lack of health care.

Remember Japanese internment Camps? For a while after World War 2 we entertained ourselves into believing that that unfortunate chapter in our history was one more misguided mistake from the past that we would never again commit. Of course, that was before George Bush junior got installed into the presidency and the US saw a resurgence of medieval methods like torture--physical and psychological--and a slew of other uncivil policies assuring the erosion of our liberties.

The Obama administration is stepping up pressure on Pakistan to expand and reorient its fight against the Taliban and Al Qaeda, warning that failing to do so would undercut the new strategy and troop increase for Afghanistan that President Obama is preparing to approve, American officials say.

Remember Japanese internment Camps? For a while after World War 2 we entertained ourselves into believing that that unfortunate chapter in our history was one more misguided mistake from the past that we would never again commit. Of course, that was before George Bush junior got installed into the presidency and the US saw a resurgence of medieval methods like torture--physical and psychological--and a slew of other uncivil policies assuring the erosion of our liberties.

"But the real questions are: does finishing that job make any sense and will more troops help finish the job?Eikenberry's position has evolved over time. He once got along with Karzai but, as ambassador, during the recent presidential campaign, he appeared with the opposition candidates who accused Karzai of election fraud in the first election and pushed Karzai to overturn the initial disputed results that would have ruled out a runoff election. "Can you recall any U.S. ambassador ever showing up at a press conference with opposition candidates challenging the legitimacy of an election?"

David Corn stops Republican revisionism dead in its tracks.

THE dead at Fort Hood had not even been laid to rest when their massacre became yet another political battle cry for the self-proclaimed patriots of the American right [who proclaimed that] Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan was a terrorist. Joe Lieberman announced hearings to investigate the Army for its dereliction of duty on homeland security. Peter Hoekstra vowed to unmask cover-ups in the White House and at the C.I.A. It’s quite possible that some of what this crowd says is right . Yet the mass murder at Fort Hood didn’t happen in isolation. It unfolded against the backdrop of Obama’s final lap of decision-making about Afghanistan. In a week of horrific news, it was good to hear at the end of it that Obama is dissatisfied with the four Afghanistan options he has been weighing so far. The more time he deliberates, the more he is learning that he’s on a fool’s errand with no exit. If we have learned anything concrete so far from the massacre at Fort Hood, it’s that our hawks, for all their certitude, are as utterly confused as the rest of us about who it is we’re fighting in Afghanistan and to what end.

Retired US four-star general: Karzai's brother is 'a thug' Nov 12

The current U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan, General Karl W. Eikenberry, who was top U.S. military commander in Afghanistan from 2005 to 2007, has told President Obama he opposes sending more troops. .... snip ... When the RAND Corporation held a forum on Afghanistan recently on Capitol Hill, Zbigniew Brzezinski claimed that it was uncontroversial that US troops had to stay in Afghanistan. I pointed him to polls of Americans, and he replied that Americans get fatigued and don't know any better.