There will soon officially be military units from fifty or more nations serving under NATO command in Afghanistan - including what is left of alleged neutral nations in Europe (Austria, Finland, Ireland, Sweden, Switzerland) - from four continents and the Middle East. Never before in history have soldiers from so many nations served under a common military structure in a single war theater. Afghanistan is the training and testing ground for an embryonic world army.
From Nominal Peacekeeping To Classic Counterinsurgency And Warfare
No longer will this international military force disguise itself under a mask of providing security for the capital of Kabul or national elections, for peacekeeping and reconstruction. It now has only one purpose, to wage war. Counterinsurgency war.
On July 28 McChrystal was interviewed by the Los Angeles Times and asked concerning the war in Afghanistan if there "has been too much focus on counter-terrorism?"
His response was: "I think there hasn't been enough focus on counterinsurgency. I am certainly not in a position to criticize counter-terrorism. But at this point in the war, in Afghanistan, it is most important to focus on almost classic counterinsurgency." [6]
This May a Western airstrike killed an estimated 140 Afghan civilians in the province of Farah and the following month it was reported that "US airstrikes have killed hundreds of Afghan civilians over the past months" and "some 800 civilians have perished in the past five months during clashes between US-led troops and insurgents affiliated with the Taliban." [7]
As he was stepping down from the post of NATO Supreme Allied Commander late last month US General Bantz Craddock shouted the truth about Afghanistan over his shoulder as it were: "The politicians can call it whatever they like. I am a military man and for me it is a war." [8]
Within weeks of now General McChrystal assuming control of all US and NATO military forces in Afghanistan and nearby nations (Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan) on July 2nd the US launched its largest combat offensive in Asia (and probably the world) since its war in Indochina decades ago. Operation Strike of the Sword (Khanjar) began with an assault by Marines, tanks and attack helicopters and is still raging almost a month afterwards. Britain began a simultaneous and complementary offensive, Operation Panther's Claw, also in Helmand Province. Less than two weeks after the commencement of both German NATO Rapid Response Force troops started a major, Germany's first, combat offensive in the northern province of Kunduz which is still being carried out and may last six weeks altogether.
A Reuters account of the American offensive was entitled "First major action under Obama's war plan: US launches big offensive in Helmand" and detailed that "Thousands of US Marines on Thursday [July 2] stormed deep into Afghanistan's Helmand province, the Afghan Taliban's stronghold, launching the biggest military offensive there since 2001, and the first under the presidency of Barack Obama." [9]
The operations have contributed to this month being the deadliest for both US and NATO troops in a war that will be eight years old in October. The US has lost 40 soldiers and Western forces in general 70 so far this July.
In tandem with the US and British attacks the Pakistani army was deployed to the border with Helmand.
On July 10 the Chairman of the NATO Military Committee, Admiral Giampaolo di Paola, "said that either Pakistan was already carrying out a military operation against militants in Balochistan bordering southern Afghanistan or would be doing so in line with ongoing action on the other side of the border." [10]
To Cross-Border South Asian Conflict
The expansion of the Afghan War into Pakistan began in earnest in the last months of 2008 with drone missile attacks and helicopter raids in the nation. It has intensified appreciably under the current US administration. Dozens of drone strikes have been carried out this year so far, the deadliest to date in June which targeted a funeral of victims killed earlier in the day, resulting overall in 80 dead and almost 100 wounded, referred to in the Western press as "terrorists." "The US has carried out at least 35 drone attacks on Pakistan's tribal areas, killing and wounding over 500 people over the past year." [11]
A week later another US drone fired three missiles inside Pakistan's Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA), which killed 15 and wounded dozens on a Friday, the Muslim prayer day.
As regards claims that some 180 victims at a funeral were all al-Qaeda operatives or Taliban militants, a news source from the region wrote:
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