The Sandbox and Areas Reports Thread (January 2008)
News only - commentary elsewhere, please.
Thanks for helping this "news only" thread system work!
Articles found January 1, 2008
Afghanistan says no return for expelled foreign officials
Article Link
* Official says expulsion a message that the govt is ‘watching everyone’
KABUL: The Afghan government Tuesday defended its decision to expel two foreign officials over national security charges, saying “no way is left open” for the pair’s return to the strife-torn country.
The government last week expelled two Westerners - the second most senior European Union official in Afghanistan and a top UN political advisor - accusing them of threatening national security. The UN dismissed the charges as a “misunderstanding” and hoped the pair would be cleared of the allegations.
But the Afghan government is not backing down. “The government’s definite decision is that the two individuals have... been expelled... and no way is left open for their return,” President Hamid Karzai’s senior spokesman, Homayun Hamidzada, told reporters in Kabul. Kabul has said the two expelled officials - Irish national Michael Semple, working for the EU, and Briton Mervyn Patterson - made contact with the Taliban during visits to the southern province of Helmand, a rebel stronghold.
More on link
110-year-old military heirloom a lucky charm for Cdn. soldier in Afghanistan
Article Link
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan - More than a century ago, a young British army private returned home safely from battle along what is now the Afghanistan-Pakistan border. He later joined the Canadian Forces during the First World War and survived that conflict as well before going on to raise a family.
Four generations later, Pte. Charles Taylor's great -grandson has found himself in the same region battling another insurgency.
Maj. Walter Taylor was among 133 Canadian soldiers to proudly accept his own tour medal on New Year's Day for service in Afghanistan.
"I'm very glad to be able to follow in my great-grandfather's footsteps," Taylor said, clutching his great-grandfather's 1897 service medal for participating in the Trash Campaign.
"But obviously, for the reasons of the goals we're trying to accomplish here, I certainly hope my great -grandchildren aren't still here," the 34-year-old engineer with the 43rd field squadron quipped after the ceremony.
Just days after the Canadian Forces registered it's 78th death in Afghanistan, the Ottawa native said he holds his great-grandfather's medal close to him as a bit of a talisman or good-luck charm.
More on link
Coalition: Several Taliban Killed in Afghanistan
By VOA News 01 January 2008
Article Link
Afghan and U.S.-led coalition troops say they have killed several suspected Taliban militants during an operation in southern Helmand province.
Coalition officials said in a statement released Tuesday that the latest clash occurred as troops searched a compound for militants associated with the Taliban, as well as others helping foreign fighters.
During the search a gun battle erupted in which several suspected militants died.
A coalition statement said no civilians were killed or injured in the fighting.
The statement adds that a cache of weapons including rifles, rockets and explosives was found and destroyed following following the battle.
More on link
Dispatches From Zambar, Afghanistan
Laying Down Roads in Bin Laden's Lion's Den
Reporter's Notebook By MATT GUTMAN ZAMBAR, Afghanistan, Jan. 1, 2008
Article Link
Share The slop tasted good. Spam cubed with a jack knife, rice, Ramen noodles and a cup of chicken soup, dumped in a steel pot and cooked on a gas burner, until the ingredients reach the right temperature: hot. The sun slunk back behind the snow-capped mountains to the west. The temperature dropped faster. Delta Company, a light infantry unit farmed out to the 82nd Airborne's Second battalion Airborne field artillery regiment, had seized a compound in this hostile village of seemingly identical mud-brick compounds. Just a few miles away are the remnants of the training camp in which Muhammad Atta and other 9/11 hijackers trained. Also nearby is Osama bin Laden's training camp, Al Masadah, or the Lion's Den, where he gained fame in 1988 following a bloody battle with the Soviets. The men of this platoon, infantry men all, accustomed to eating battle rations and sleeping in sub-zero temperatures for months on end, had come looking for a fight. Now they were just trying to get warm. They greedily slurped down Sgt. Rodolfo "Marty" Martinez's slop from the battle rations bag they had sliced in half and used as a bowl. It was the first hot meal in a couple of days, and they were grateful to eat something other than battle rations. Their Humvees were stuffed with thousands of rounds of ammunition. Gunners manned the cannon-ike .50 cal machine guns. And behind each gunner was a LAW anti-tank missile. But five days in and they had not fired a shot. They rumbled into this village as part of a mile-long convoy that ferried in the first coalition troops this town had seen in a year. This was the biggest mission of their 15-month deployment with more than 850 American and Afghan troops involved. The operation was set to last 30 days, with the troops searching each house twice.
More on link
'Be proud; you deserve it,' general tells Canadian troops receiving service stars
Ottawa soldier among honourees also carries great-grandfather's medal from 1897
Last Updated: Tuesday, January 1, 2008 | 11:54 AM ET CBC News
Article Link
An Ottawa soldier based in Afghanistan whose great-grandfather fought in the same part of the world 110 years ago was among about 150 personnel honoured with service medals during a ceremony in Kandahar Tuesday.
Maj. Walter Taylor's ancestor served in the Tirah Campaign in 1897-98 in what was then India and is now a region of Pakistan close to the Afghanistan border.
More on link
Assassinated because she was a woman
January 02, 2008
Article Link
ARE women across the world mourning Benazir Bhutto? They should be. Not because she was a saint; she wasn't. She was at least a beneficiary of the billions stolen by her husband from the people of Pakistan. Nor did she do anything much for Pakistani women during her two periods of leadership, declining even to try to repeal the infamous Hudood laws whereby rape victims can be punished for adultery.
She should be mourned not because of what she was but because of what she symbolised. Her death was a political assassination, not an honour killing, as some have said.
Nevertheless it was a reminder of what we face. Bhutto was murdered because to her enemies she was Westernised, a traitor to her culture and an American stooge. She was murdered because she had vowed to bring secularism and democracy to Pakistan. She was murdered because she was all these things, and a woman.
"I know I am a symbol of what the so-called jihadists, Taliban and al-Qa'ida, most fear," she wrote in her autobiography, Daughter of the East. "I am a female political leader fighting to bring modernity, communication, education and technology to Pakistan."
Yes, fear is the right word. The fear of women, of women's freedom, and most of all, of women's sexuality, runs through Islamism. It is a large part of Islamist hatred of the West. "The issue of women is not marginal," writes the Dutch scholar Ian Buruma. "It lies at the heart of Islamic occidentalism (anti-Westernism)."
It is the "deep, ignored issue", writes Paul Berman, author of Terror and Liberalism. Why, I wonder, is it mainly men who are making these points?
To call these warriors for God sexually repressed is to absurdly understate it. Consider Mohammad Atta, one of the September 11 hijackers who -- despite having spent his last nights in the US going to strip clubs -- wrote in his will that no pregnant woman or other "unclean person" should come to his funeral and that no woman should visit his grave.
More on link
Settling into Afghanistan: Nearly 6 months after deployment, B Company has suffered and learned a lot from war
Allison Lampert , CanWest News Service Published: Tuesday, January 01, 2008
Article Link
ZHARI DISTRICT, Afghanistan -- The soldiers of B Company had spent months preparing for Afghanistan, but the harshness of the war they were about to fight really hit them at their going-away party in June.
The crowds were cheering during a parade along the Grande Allee in Quebec City for the departing soldiers from Valcartier base. Amidst the hoopla, Major Dave Abboud, commander of the Van Doos infantry company, noticed a soldier with his left leg missing below the knee.
Abboud, of the Royal 22nd Regiment's third battle group, said he admired how proud the soldier looked in his military uniform, despite his injury delivered by a roadside bomb.
More on link
Jean celebrates troops devotion, Quebec's birthday
Published: Tuesday, January 01, 2008
Article Link
Governor-General Michaelle Jean's addressed the nation New Year's day with a speech that touched on the war in Afghanistan, argued for the need of solidarity at home and abroad and celebrated the 400-year anniversary of the founding of Quebec City.
As Canada counted its 74th soldier to die in the war in Afghanistan last week, Jean fittingly started her address by underlining the courage and devotion of Canadian troops and their families.
"As Canadians we are inspired by the courage, determination and conviction shown by our soldiers overseas," she said.
More on link
Premature mine explosion kills 2 Taliban in Afghanistan
www.chinaview.cn 2008-01-01 19:32:00
Article Link
KABUL, Jan. 1 (Xinhua) -- Two Taliban insurgents were killed as their mine exploded prematurely in Afghanistan's central Ghazni province in the wee hours of Tuesday, police said.
"Some Taliban fighters were busy in planting a mine on a road in Nawa district very early today to target government troops. Suddenly it exploded killing two insurgents on the spot," senior police officer in the province Mohammad Zaman told Xinhua.
However, Taliban purported spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid put the number of militants' casualties three and said three fighters were killed in the premature explosion.
The year of 2007 has been considered the most violent year since the collapse of the Taliban regime six years ago as more than 6,000 people had been killed in conflicts and Taliban-related violence.
More on link
News only - commentary elsewhere, please.
Thanks for helping this "news only" thread system work!
Articles found January 1, 2008
Afghanistan says no return for expelled foreign officials
Article Link
* Official says expulsion a message that the govt is ‘watching everyone’
KABUL: The Afghan government Tuesday defended its decision to expel two foreign officials over national security charges, saying “no way is left open” for the pair’s return to the strife-torn country.
The government last week expelled two Westerners - the second most senior European Union official in Afghanistan and a top UN political advisor - accusing them of threatening national security. The UN dismissed the charges as a “misunderstanding” and hoped the pair would be cleared of the allegations.
But the Afghan government is not backing down. “The government’s definite decision is that the two individuals have... been expelled... and no way is left open for their return,” President Hamid Karzai’s senior spokesman, Homayun Hamidzada, told reporters in Kabul. Kabul has said the two expelled officials - Irish national Michael Semple, working for the EU, and Briton Mervyn Patterson - made contact with the Taliban during visits to the southern province of Helmand, a rebel stronghold.
More on link
110-year-old military heirloom a lucky charm for Cdn. soldier in Afghanistan
Article Link
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan - More than a century ago, a young British army private returned home safely from battle along what is now the Afghanistan-Pakistan border. He later joined the Canadian Forces during the First World War and survived that conflict as well before going on to raise a family.
Four generations later, Pte. Charles Taylor's great -grandson has found himself in the same region battling another insurgency.
Maj. Walter Taylor was among 133 Canadian soldiers to proudly accept his own tour medal on New Year's Day for service in Afghanistan.
"I'm very glad to be able to follow in my great-grandfather's footsteps," Taylor said, clutching his great-grandfather's 1897 service medal for participating in the Trash Campaign.
"But obviously, for the reasons of the goals we're trying to accomplish here, I certainly hope my great -grandchildren aren't still here," the 34-year-old engineer with the 43rd field squadron quipped after the ceremony.
Just days after the Canadian Forces registered it's 78th death in Afghanistan, the Ottawa native said he holds his great-grandfather's medal close to him as a bit of a talisman or good-luck charm.
More on link
Coalition: Several Taliban Killed in Afghanistan
By VOA News 01 January 2008
Article Link
Afghan and U.S.-led coalition troops say they have killed several suspected Taliban militants during an operation in southern Helmand province.
Coalition officials said in a statement released Tuesday that the latest clash occurred as troops searched a compound for militants associated with the Taliban, as well as others helping foreign fighters.
During the search a gun battle erupted in which several suspected militants died.
A coalition statement said no civilians were killed or injured in the fighting.
The statement adds that a cache of weapons including rifles, rockets and explosives was found and destroyed following following the battle.
More on link
Dispatches From Zambar, Afghanistan
Laying Down Roads in Bin Laden's Lion's Den
Reporter's Notebook By MATT GUTMAN ZAMBAR, Afghanistan, Jan. 1, 2008
Article Link
Share The slop tasted good. Spam cubed with a jack knife, rice, Ramen noodles and a cup of chicken soup, dumped in a steel pot and cooked on a gas burner, until the ingredients reach the right temperature: hot. The sun slunk back behind the snow-capped mountains to the west. The temperature dropped faster. Delta Company, a light infantry unit farmed out to the 82nd Airborne's Second battalion Airborne field artillery regiment, had seized a compound in this hostile village of seemingly identical mud-brick compounds. Just a few miles away are the remnants of the training camp in which Muhammad Atta and other 9/11 hijackers trained. Also nearby is Osama bin Laden's training camp, Al Masadah, or the Lion's Den, where he gained fame in 1988 following a bloody battle with the Soviets. The men of this platoon, infantry men all, accustomed to eating battle rations and sleeping in sub-zero temperatures for months on end, had come looking for a fight. Now they were just trying to get warm. They greedily slurped down Sgt. Rodolfo "Marty" Martinez's slop from the battle rations bag they had sliced in half and used as a bowl. It was the first hot meal in a couple of days, and they were grateful to eat something other than battle rations. Their Humvees were stuffed with thousands of rounds of ammunition. Gunners manned the cannon-ike .50 cal machine guns. And behind each gunner was a LAW anti-tank missile. But five days in and they had not fired a shot. They rumbled into this village as part of a mile-long convoy that ferried in the first coalition troops this town had seen in a year. This was the biggest mission of their 15-month deployment with more than 850 American and Afghan troops involved. The operation was set to last 30 days, with the troops searching each house twice.
More on link
'Be proud; you deserve it,' general tells Canadian troops receiving service stars
Ottawa soldier among honourees also carries great-grandfather's medal from 1897
Last Updated: Tuesday, January 1, 2008 | 11:54 AM ET CBC News
Article Link
An Ottawa soldier based in Afghanistan whose great-grandfather fought in the same part of the world 110 years ago was among about 150 personnel honoured with service medals during a ceremony in Kandahar Tuesday.
Maj. Walter Taylor's ancestor served in the Tirah Campaign in 1897-98 in what was then India and is now a region of Pakistan close to the Afghanistan border.
More on link
Assassinated because she was a woman
January 02, 2008
Article Link
ARE women across the world mourning Benazir Bhutto? They should be. Not because she was a saint; she wasn't. She was at least a beneficiary of the billions stolen by her husband from the people of Pakistan. Nor did she do anything much for Pakistani women during her two periods of leadership, declining even to try to repeal the infamous Hudood laws whereby rape victims can be punished for adultery.
She should be mourned not because of what she was but because of what she symbolised. Her death was a political assassination, not an honour killing, as some have said.
Nevertheless it was a reminder of what we face. Bhutto was murdered because to her enemies she was Westernised, a traitor to her culture and an American stooge. She was murdered because she had vowed to bring secularism and democracy to Pakistan. She was murdered because she was all these things, and a woman.
"I know I am a symbol of what the so-called jihadists, Taliban and al-Qa'ida, most fear," she wrote in her autobiography, Daughter of the East. "I am a female political leader fighting to bring modernity, communication, education and technology to Pakistan."
Yes, fear is the right word. The fear of women, of women's freedom, and most of all, of women's sexuality, runs through Islamism. It is a large part of Islamist hatred of the West. "The issue of women is not marginal," writes the Dutch scholar Ian Buruma. "It lies at the heart of Islamic occidentalism (anti-Westernism)."
It is the "deep, ignored issue", writes Paul Berman, author of Terror and Liberalism. Why, I wonder, is it mainly men who are making these points?
To call these warriors for God sexually repressed is to absurdly understate it. Consider Mohammad Atta, one of the September 11 hijackers who -- despite having spent his last nights in the US going to strip clubs -- wrote in his will that no pregnant woman or other "unclean person" should come to his funeral and that no woman should visit his grave.
More on link
Settling into Afghanistan: Nearly 6 months after deployment, B Company has suffered and learned a lot from war
Allison Lampert , CanWest News Service Published: Tuesday, January 01, 2008
Article Link
ZHARI DISTRICT, Afghanistan -- The soldiers of B Company had spent months preparing for Afghanistan, but the harshness of the war they were about to fight really hit them at their going-away party in June.
The crowds were cheering during a parade along the Grande Allee in Quebec City for the departing soldiers from Valcartier base. Amidst the hoopla, Major Dave Abboud, commander of the Van Doos infantry company, noticed a soldier with his left leg missing below the knee.
Abboud, of the Royal 22nd Regiment's third battle group, said he admired how proud the soldier looked in his military uniform, despite his injury delivered by a roadside bomb.
More on link
Jean celebrates troops devotion, Quebec's birthday
Published: Tuesday, January 01, 2008
Article Link
Governor-General Michaelle Jean's addressed the nation New Year's day with a speech that touched on the war in Afghanistan, argued for the need of solidarity at home and abroad and celebrated the 400-year anniversary of the founding of Quebec City.
As Canada counted its 74th soldier to die in the war in Afghanistan last week, Jean fittingly started her address by underlining the courage and devotion of Canadian troops and their families.
"As Canadians we are inspired by the courage, determination and conviction shown by our soldiers overseas," she said.
More on link
Premature mine explosion kills 2 Taliban in Afghanistan
www.chinaview.cn 2008-01-01 19:32:00
Article Link
KABUL, Jan. 1 (Xinhua) -- Two Taliban insurgents were killed as their mine exploded prematurely in Afghanistan's central Ghazni province in the wee hours of Tuesday, police said.
"Some Taliban fighters were busy in planting a mine on a road in Nawa district very early today to target government troops. Suddenly it exploded killing two insurgents on the spot," senior police officer in the province Mohammad Zaman told Xinhua.
However, Taliban purported spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid put the number of militants' casualties three and said three fighters were killed in the premature explosion.
The year of 2007 has been considered the most violent year since the collapse of the Taliban regime six years ago as more than 6,000 people had been killed in conflicts and Taliban-related violence.
More on link