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June bloodiest month for troops
By Jason Straziuso (The Associated Press)
The fundamentalist militia in June staged a sophisticated jailbreak that freed 886 prisoners, then briefly infiltrated a strategic valley outside Kandahar. Last week, a Pentagon report forecast the Taliban would maintain or increase its pace of attacks, which are already up 40 percent this year from 2007 where U.S. troops operate along the Pakistan border. Some observers say the insurgency has gained dangerous momentum. While June also saw the international community meet in Paris to pledge $21 billion in aid, an Afghanistan expert at New York University warns that there is still no strategy to turn that commitment into success. Defense Secretary Robert Gates has noted that more international troops died in Afghanistan than in Iraq in May, the first time that had happened. While that trend - now two months old - is in part due to decreasing violence in Iraq, it also reflects rising violence in Afghanistan. At least 45 international troops - including at least 27 U.S. forces and 13 British - died in Afghanistan in June, the deadliest month since the 2001 U.S.-led invasion to oust the Taliban, according to an Associated Press count. In Iraq, at least 31 international soldiers died in June: 29 U.S. troops and one each from the former Soviet republics of Georgia and Azerbaijan. There are 144,000 U.S. troops in Iraq and 4,000 British forces in addition to small contingents from several other nations. The 40-nation international coalition is much broader in Afghanistan, where only about half of the 65,000 international troops are American. The Texan strives to present all information fairly, accurately and completely.
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Peter Warren II
posted 7/02/08 @ 11:05 AM CST
Only Israel benefits from these endless Middle East wars. Iraq is the beginning. As we commit war-crimes in Baghdad, the US gov't commits treason at home by opening mail, eliminating habeas corpus, using the judiciary to steal private lands, banning books like "America Deceived" from Amazon and Wikipedia, conducting warrantless wiretaps and engaging in illegal wars on behalf of AIPAC's 'money-men'. (Continued…)
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