• It may be a myth that most Afghans remember the harshness of Taliban rule
  21 July 2010, by Matthew J. Nasuti (Former U.S. Air Force Captain)

  On December 5, 2009, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton told CBS News reporter Bob Schieffer:
  “They (the Afghan people) don’t want to see the return of the Taliban. There is absolutely no evidence that the Afghans are in any way supportive of that.”
  This has been the mantra of the American government and NATO for the past 10 years and it is a cornerstone of their war strategy. They are relying on the premise that the Afghan people remember the harshness of Taliban rule and will (...)

• U.S. losing Afghanistan to China
  19 July 2010, by Matthew J. Nasuti (Former U.S. Air Force Captain)

  “The Chinese contribution (to Afghanistan) is as important as that of Western troops.” A quote from Mohammad Yalaqi, the Afghan Minister of Commerce and Industry to Tini Tran of the Associated Press on July 4, 2010, for the story:
  “As US fights, China spends to gain Afghan foothold.”
  It should stun the American public to discover that some Afghan officials place Chinese commercial ties on an equal par with ten years of American military and reconstruction efforts.
  On July 5, 2010, (...)

• Stanley A. McChrystal for U. S. Ambassador - Kabul; Richard C. Holbrooke for U.S. Ambassador - Islamabad
  6 July 2010, by Matthew J. Nasuti (Former U.S. Air Force Captain)

  America’s last chance to prevail against the Taliban depends on a sound strategy and a unified, competent civilian/military command structure. The current State Department effort is fractured by having Ambassador Karl W. Eikenberry, “Special” Representative/Ambassador Richard C. Holbrooke and Deputy Secretary of State Jacob J. Lew sharing authority over Afghanistan.
  This author, in 2009, called for Karl Eikenberry to be replaced as he is gloomy and orthodox. More importantly, he does not (...)

• Part 2: American military casualties in Iraq and Afghanistan exceed 500,000
  23 June 2010, by Matthew J. Nasuti (Former U.S. Air Force Captain)

  In Afghanistan, the light at the end of the tunnel is an exploding Taliban IED. The Pentagon has been given nine years to win its war and it has failed to do so. Last week the American public was given a status report by Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, who told Time Magazine that he is “pretty confident” that in six months the U.S. military will have made “sufficient progress” in the war.
  This vague and hardly inspiring characterization (in which the Secretary commits to nothing) sets (...)

• American Military Casualties in Iraq and Afghanistan Now Exceed 500,000 (Part 1 of 2)
  18 June 2010, by Matthew J. Nasuti (Former U.S. Air Force Captain)

  Since 2001, the Pentagon has sought to downplay overall U.S. military losses by artfully redefining what is a combat-related “casualty.” It has published and then changed the rules several times regarding the reporting of casualties. Currently the Pentagon uses DoD Instruction 1300.18 to arbitrarily separate out “wounded in action” from non-battle injuries. Wounded in action is narrowly defined to essentially be an injury directly caused by an adversary. So called “friendly fire” injuries (...)

• EXCLUSIVE REPORT: NATO Promotes Toxic Chlorine in Afghanistan (Part 2 of 2)
  10 June 2010, by Matthew J. Nasuti (Former U.S. Air Force Captain)

  Treating drinking water with toxic chlorine is recognized in the West as unhealthy yet NATO and the U.S. Embassy continue to foster such technology onto the Afghan people. Chlorinated drinking water is sub-lethal. Drinking it will not cause immediate death, but it will increase the rate of illness within the consuming population, ultimately decreasing their life-spans. The World Health Organization (WHO) has determined that there are better and safer methods for purifying drinking water (...)

• EXCLUSIVE REPORT: Afghan Citizens at Risk from Chlorine-Contaminated Drinking Water (Part 1 of 2)
  7 June 2010, by Matthew J. Nasuti (Former U.S. Air Force Captain)

  NATO and USAID are promoting toxic chlorine water treatment systems and donating them to the people of Afghanistan without disclosing the health risks that result from ingesting chlorine. All that seems to matter to both organizations is that chlorine is cheap and easy to distribute. Chlorine, in addition to being a health hazard, is also less effective as a disinfectant than other available technologies. Afghanistan is getting the worst of both worlds: a treatment technology that is (...)

• U.S. Troops in Afghanistan Drinking Unsafe Water
  20 May 2010, by Matthew J. Nasuti (Former U.S. Air Force Captain)

  Every year there are new reports of abuses being heaped on American troops in the field. They were provided with cheap and unnecessarily heavy body armor instead of lightweight titanium layered Kevlar. They were issued canvas-covered Humvees. There were unconscionable delays in deploying armored Humvees and in ordering 1970’s vintage MRAPs. They have to fight with jam-prone M-4s and live on bases blanketed by toxic burn pit smoke.
  Now the method used to "purify" our troops’ drinking (...)

• EXCLUSIVE REPORT: American Military Burn Pits Pose Risk to Future Generations of Afghans (Part 3 of 3)
  4 May 2010, by Matthew J. Nasuti (Former U.S. Air Force Captain)

  The American military continues to operate burn pits in Afghanistan eighteen months after the U.S. Congress banned their use. See the February 1, 2010, article by Lindsay Wise and Lise Olsen of the Houston Chronicle. They used the burn pit at Camp Taji in Iraq as an example. It continues to open-burn 120 tons of waste each day. This provides a glimpse as to the volume of waste that is being illegally burned on American bases every day. Multiple that times hundreds of bases and posts in (...)

• EXCLUSIVE REPORT: American Military Burn Pits Pollute Afghan Countryside (Part 2 of 3)
  2 May 2010, by Matthew J. Nasuti (Former U.S. Air Force Captain)

  Pentagon officials seem to support the following epitaph for Afghanistan:
  “We had to pollute the Afghan countryside in order to save it from the Taliban."
  In reality, the American military did not have to pollute. It chose to be sloppy and reckless and to ignore environmental standards.
  On October 28, 2009, George W. Bush, in one of his last acts as President, signed into law H.R. 2647, which included provisions of “The Military Personnel War Zone Toxic Exposure Prevention Act.” The (...)

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