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OpEdNews Op Eds    H3'ed 10/9/10

Afghanistan: Incubator for green energy

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Message John Grant

Petraeus has pressured the reluctant Pakistani military to attack insurgent elements in the Pashtun border areas, and now Pakistani soldiers have been caught on video lining up six young, blindfolded civilian males and gunning them down. We find this offensive, since we do our killing discriminately or by killing people who get in the way of our super lethal weapons, then apologizing.

"I am appalled," says Rep. Howard Berman, chairman of the House Foreign Relations Committee. He has threatened this "could have implications for future security assistance to Pakistan."

Meanwhile, back in Afghanistan, President Hamid Karzai's large extended family has become a vast and corrupt network of powerful blood-cronies. Like the Taliban, Karzai is a Pashtun; he is from Kandahar, the Pashtun heartland. He is reportedly convinced the US is going to abandon him, which has motivated him to secure his power base one deal at a time, since that's the way it has been done for thousands of years. The Washington Post reports that he and the Taliban are in secret talks with terms for US withdrawal on the table.

The army goes green

Despite the July 2011 withdrawal date, the US shows no signs of leaving any time soon. The military has even decided to go green. No kidding. The Pentagon is launching a major, multi-decade R&D effort to run its war machine on alternative energy.

That's right, the institution that has expended trillions of US tax dollars securing US access to fossil fuel is now throwing itself into research and development of solar and other alternative energy sources.

Company I, Third Battalion, Fifth Marines, has just deployed from California to Helmand Province, and it will run its 150-Marine operation on solar and renewable power technology costing about $70,000. The plan is to use the technology for the more remote installations first, then as the R&D advances, expand the green transformation.

The Navy's hybrid amphibious assault ship USS Makin Island hums purely on electricity when traveling under 10 knots; it saved 900,000 gallons of fossil fuel on its maiden voyage from Mississippi to San Diego.

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I'm a 72-year-old American who served in Vietnam as a naive 19-year-old. From that moment on, I've been studying and re-thinking what US counter-insurgency war means. I live outside of Philadelphia, where I'm a writer, photographer and political (more...)
 

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