Near our home was a shoe store, owned and run by a Jew. Even before 1933 his store windows and swastikas had been painted on the walls and door. But, after the “takeover,” the Nazis demolished his store in broad daylight. They broke all the windows, threw the merchandise onto the sidewalk, and dragged the proprietor and his wife and two children into the street. They started beating and cursing them, all the while calling them dirty names and shouting that they weren’t fit to live among the exalted German, Aryan people. The greatest indignity of all is that after the family was lying in the gutter in agony, the Nazis urinated on them. I was only seven years of age when this took place, but I remember it vividly.

From Afghanistan:

From Pamela Geller, quoted in the Houston Chronicle [h/t -- Eric Dondero]:

I love these Marines. Perhaps this is the infidel interpretation of the Islamic ritual of washing and preparing the body for burial.

In future dictionaries, a “geller” will be defined as “a near-perfect intersection of abject stupidity and irredeemable evil.”

[cross-posted from KN@PPSTER]

"God forbid, if a war breaks between Pakistan and America, we will side (with) Pakistan," Karzai said, according to a transcript released yesterday by his office. –Karzai Says Afghanistan Would Help Pakistan Against U.S. Attack – Businessweek

VIDEO: Karzai vows to support Pakistan vs. U.S. if war

Are the puppets breaking their strings?

Behind the scenes — later paragraphs — we discover that the Pentagon wanted to keep at least 3,000 to 5,000 troops on Iraqi soil. The true number was significantly larger. But they’re all leaving. Why?

It was almost certainly the S.O.F.A., the acronym for "Status Of Forces Agreement."

Obama’s announcement signals that US officials have been unable to negotiate with Iraq’s leaders a renewal of the Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) governing the stationing and mission of American troops on Iraqi soil. Pentagon officials in particular, backed by a number of congressional leaders, had called for leaving a force of between 3,000 and 5,000 in Iraq for an extended period. –Iraq withdrawal: With US troops set to exit, 9-year war draws to close – CSMonitor.com

A key provision of any SOFA is exempting occupying soldiers from the laws of the country being occupied. It was this provision that Iraqi negotiators refused to renew. Thus, for example, once the old SOFA expired, U.S. soldiers who killed an Iraqi could be tried for murder under Iraqi law.

The Iraqis, it seems, found the back door to get rid of occupying U.S. troops.

This would likely work in other countries as well.

But that still leaves the drones.

Part 1

Part 2

Check it out.

Robert Bergdahl addresses the people of Pakistan. His son, U.S. Army PFC Bowe Bergdahl, was captured by the Taliban in Paktika Province, Afghanistan on June 30, 2009.

Last Wednesday, nearly 200 tribal elders and other notables from Kandahar Province convened in the Roshan Plaza in downtown Kabul. The group was a who’s who of pro-government figures, among them Agha Lalai Dastegiri, Fazluddin Agha, and Bacha Sherzai, brother of former governor Gul Agha. They had gathered to petition President Hamid Karzai to appoint his brother Ahmed Wali Karzai as the next governor of the province. (The current leader, Afghan-Canadian Tooryalai Wesa, is widely reputed to be looking for a way out of his job.) The meeting was part of a week-long junket, and according to several people who attended, the cost, which would have been as high as several hundred thousand dollars, was paid by Ahmed Wali Karzai himself. …

The campaign to make Ahmed Wali governor of southern Afghanistan’s most important province has become a topic of earnest discussion in Kabul policy circles since that meeting. Yet from what I’ve heard, the reaction has been relatively muted among diplomats and senior military officers, aside from some apprehension over how such an appointment might play in the press. The sentiment seems to be that since Ahmed Wali is already the de facto governor, actually giving him the job might make him more accountable.

Such a development would bring to an inauspicious close the long-running debate about what to do with a problem like Ahmed Wali. In the past three years, the president’s brother has been accused (mostly by American sources cited in the New York Times) of being involved in the heroin trade and of being paid by the CIA to run illegal militias. He also has close ties to Akhtar Mohammad and Ruhollah, the muscle behind the notorious convoy operations of Watan Risk Management, a now-blacklisted entity whose problematic links with insurgents were detailed in the congressional Host Nations Trucking Report.

So what to do with Ahmed Wali? Pressure Hamid to move him out of Kandahar? Put him on the JPEL “kill/capture” list? Work with him, in the hope that he’ll mend his ways? Or marginalize him by building “capacity” around the office of the current governor, Tooryalai Wesa?

Read the rest.

If you wish to ask President Obama to reconsider this, please visit ComeHomeAmerica.us and sign the letter.

More than one hundred national and grassroots organization have signed on to a letter to the Congressional Progressive Caucus (CPC) calling for a vote against the FY 2012 Defense Appropriations bill, slated to come before the House this week. The letter raises grave concerns that the bill not only allocates $648.7 billion for continued operations of the Pentagon, but $118 billion to continue the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Noting that the Obama Administration seems determined to continue the war in Afghanistan, the letter also urged CPC members to back an anticipated Lee/Woolsey/Nadler amendment to limit funding for Afghanistan to the rapid and safe withdrawal of all US troops from that country.

The letter states in part, “With an economy teetering at the edge, and an exorbitantly expensive, protracted military engagement in Afghanistan, Congress is again asked to appropriate more war funding.” It notes that a decade of military expenditures has accomplished little, while people in the U.S. have grown poorer and tired of hearing that there is not enough money for schools, jobs, health care or housing – but always enough for wars.

The letter notes that the US Conference of Mayors overwhelmingly passed a resolution to end the wars and bring the money home, amplifying the voices of their constituents. It asks the CPC to send a strong signal that they are unwilling to accept the continuation of a failed policy, and are determined to move the country towards a peaceful solution in Afghanistan.

It further calls on Congress “to exercise its Constitutional role of overseeing expenditures on behalf of its constituents,” and promises to support the CPC in efforts to redirect national spending priorities away from militarism and towards domestic needs.

The organizations backing this letter are calling upon their members to contact all members of Congress now, urging them to oppose continued funding for the Afghanistan War and to vote against the 2012 Defense Appropriations bill totaling $648.7 billion.

Many of the national groups signing the letter are members of United for Peace and Justice (UFPJ), the largest anti-war network in the US. This project was initiated under the auspices of United for Peace and Justice by Progressive Democrats of America and CODEPINK. Other national organizations include Military Families Speak Out, US Labor Against the War, American Friends Service Committee, USAction, Veterans for Peace, National Priorities Project, Pax Christi USA. Full text of letter with signatures here.