Even the most psychotically pro-war conservatives now admit that civilian massacres by NATO, and NATO-allied troops, in Afghanistan are anything but legal.

A controversy has erupted in New Zealand over the publication of photos showing a Victoria Cross awarded SAS corporal walking from a building in Kabul, shortly after a gun battle that killed three insurgents and wounded 70 others.



The horror those eyes have seen.






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Rudd Government Pre-Announces End Of Australia's Involvement In The War On Afghanistan

The short version is this : we are fighting an unwinnable war in Afghanistan, everybody knows it, particularly the Taliban, and US President Obama is unlikely to deploy the tens of thousands of additional soldiers the Pentagon is now demanding.

Unofficially, negotiations with the Taliban have already begun, with a gestating NATO plan to pay its fighters, and warlord aligned allies, not to blow up or shoot foreign troops, as the French had been doing secretly for years. Paying the enemy not to try and kill you is a strategy that proved successful with the Sunni-dominated insurgency in Iraq.

Defence Minister John Faulkner appears to have already gotten the word that Australia's role in the Afghanistan war is set to wind down, fast, and before leaving for a NATO meeting on the war, Faulkner pre-announced the news to the media, and the public, in preparation for the official announcements that will soon follow :

....Faulkner says he is exploring options to get Australian troops out of Afghanistan earlier than expected.

Australia has around 1,500 troops in Afghanistan, where they are mainly focused on training a fourth brigade of the Afghan National Army. No specific date has been set for their return.

More Here

Australia's pre-announce makes international headlines, with the announcement from Faulkner set to feed into heated debate in the US and the UK about their reluctance to commit more troops.

Raw Story :

Pilger : The War On Afghanistan "Is A Fraud"

Australian journalist John Pilger was awarded the 2009 Sydney Peace Prize in August :

The jury made the decision on the basis of Pilger's “courage as a foreign and war correspondent in enabling the voices of the powerless to be heard”. It also praised his “commitment to peace with justice by exposing and holding governments to account for human rights abuses and for fearless challenges to censorship in any form”.

On November 4, he will receive the award at a lecture at the Opera House. On November 6, Pilger will speak to some 1500 students at a peace festival hosted by Cabramatta High School.

John Pilger's work is not published in any Australian city daily papers, despite being our most famous, internationally recognised journalist. Nor is Pilger published on supposedly "edgy" comment and opinion sites like The Punch or The National Times.

Why?

This is why :

The Afghan war is a fraud.

It began as an American vendetta for domestic consumption in the wake of the 11 September 2001 attacks, in which not a single Afghan was involved. The Taliban, who are Afghans, had no quarrel with the United States and were dealing secretly with the Clinton administration over a strategic pipeline. They offered to apprehend Osama Bin Laden and hand him over to a clerical court, but this was rejected.

The establishment of a permanent US/NATO presence in a resource-rich, strategic region is the principal reason for the war.

Too Much Truth

Australian Troops Have Shot, Killed Dozens Of Civilians In Iraq & Afghanistan

According to this story, more than $350,000 has been paid out by the Australian government to Iraqi and Afghan families who've had family members killed or wounded by soldiers :

Dozens of non-combatants have been shot by Diggers since the Iraq campaign began in April 2003.

Rapid "act of grace" payments can prevent revenge attacks. Defence refuses to divulge how much is paid to each family but has told The Daily Telegraph $126,442 had so far been paid out to Afghani families.

The amount covers more than 20 individuals for an average of about $6000 each. The overall figure for Iraq is $216,417 for about 10 incidents and could climb before Australia's combat involvement in Iraq finally ceases next month.

The Full Story Is Here

Junkie Depopulation Looms

Drug traffickers love war, and recession.

Local illegal drug production usually increases in countries where war and major conflicts close down peacetime economies, and new markets for those drugs open up in countries where recession has stripped away wealth and assets and dignity.

Just as Australia grinds into recession, Afghanistan heroin appears, cheap, potent and about to flood the streets of Sydney and Melbourne, for starters.

This is the end product of Afghanistan's record opium crops of 2007, Even in the midst of war, or because of it, Afghanistan produces more than 90% of the world's opium supply.

A Cause :

There are 157,000 hectares (100 metres squared) of opium fields in Afghanistan producing 7,700 tonnes...of opium and the export value of opium, morphine and heroin at border prices in neighbouring countries for Afghan traffickers was worth $3.4bn last year.

An Effect :

Heroin is back on the streets of Sydney, sparking fears society will soon have to brace itself for the return of daily overdoses.

The Daily Telegraph can reveal the deadly and highly addictive drug is re-emerging and its use increasing after almost a 10-year drought.

Paramedics and emergency department doctors are beginning to treat an increasing number of addicts who have overdosed on heroin.

Unfortunately, high potency Afghan heroin is already finding a fresh market amongst the newly jobless, and homeless. Drug use and abuse booms during hard times.

Apparently, some Sydney junkies are now taking to mixing ice with their smack, and hospital staff are finding overdose victims hard to deal with, some needing three times the normal dose of the anti-opioid Narcan to come down, or back.


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Go Eat A Big Bowl Of Fuck, You War Mongers

By Darryl Mason

The staff cutbacks at The Australian are starting to bite. The lead editorial yesterday in the once psychopathically pro-Iraq War minded newspaper :



The editor of The Australian is clearly working under tight budgetary limitations. What other reason can there be for such blatant recycling of old arguments against the Iraq War voiced by hundreds of thousands of Australians, and hundreds of millions of people around the world?

While there is no doubting the moral and strategic sense of the war to liberate Iraq from the despicable despotism of Saddam Hussein, the campaign there took resources and attention away the first front in the war on terror.

With money and good management, Afghanistan may yet be the front where terrorism is decisively defeated.

We went to War On Iraq to find and dismantle WMDs? Hell, no. We did it out of a sense of morality!

The kind of morality that results in unimaginable chaos, the finishing off of already debilitated infrastructure, the slaughter of hundreds of thousands of people, entire families full of children, thousands of doctors, civil servants, teachers, university professors, nurses and the creation of more than 3 million refugees.

The Australian newspaper, you may remember, joined the rest of the Murdoch national and worldwide media empire's downright nasty and sick assault on those who said Afghanistan was where Al Qaeda came from and so that was where the war should be fought, and that winding back in Afghanistan, after so much progress, to attack and invade and occupy Iraq was downright fucking insane.

The people who, back in late 2002 and early 2003, made all those kinds of arguments against the War On Iraq - including millions of World War I & II and Korea and Vietnam veterans in Australia, the US and the UK - were unanimously portrayed by Murdoch's newspaper and television empire as being pro-terrorist and supporters of Saddam Hussein.

And now, six years later, The Australian newspaper tries to justify its backing of the 2002 turning away from Afghanistan to ramp up the War On Iraq for "moral" reasons? Strategic reasons? So Iran can become the dominant nation in the region, and the United States can pay out hundreds of millions of dollars to brutal Sunni fighters to stop them killing American soldiers?

Is the editor of The Australian typing over a bucket of ether?

The editor of The Australian and Rupert Murdoch can go and fuck themselves.

They lied to Australians, day after day, weeks into months, about a threat that didn't exist, cramming headlines with absolute bullshit pro-war propaganda, while ignoring the obvious truth that hundreds of thousands of other Australians seemed to have no problem locating online for themselves.

The Australian newspaper's complicity in helping to manufacture the reality for a senseless war that killed hundreds of thousands of people will never be forgotten.

Afghan Heroin Express

Good news junkies :

A resurgent Taliban and its terrorist activities isn't the only concern with Afghanistan.

In recent months there's been a big increase in the production of heroin and more of the drug is finding its way onto Australian streets.

Afghan Brown heroin used to be rare in Australia, but a boom in opium production has made Afghanistan a major exporter and Australia a prime market.

...According to figures from the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, Afghan opium production is booming. It now accounts for 90 per cent of the world's supply. And much of this is produced in areas controlled by the Taliban.

Traditionally, Australian heroin users preferred so-called China White heroin which is imported from south-east Asia. But now drug users' groups say there is an unprecedented shift towards Afghan Brown heroin in some parts of the country.

Cheaper, smokeable heroin means more weekend users and more junkies. More junkies, more crime. More crime, higher insurance.

What the Taliban once took away, the 'War on Terror' has now returned.

2008 Could Be Casualty Heavy Year For Australian Troops In Afghanistan

How would prime minister Kevin Rudd deal with a somewhat steady flow of killed and injured Australian troops coming home from Afghanistan? Would he pull out Australian troops if local opposition filled the streets of our cities? Would he send in more troops to show the Taliban they cannot win?

Rudd is already preparing to withdraw all 500 or so of our combat troops now stationed in Iraq by mid-2008. But he may increase the number of Australian troops in Afghanistan, where our soldiers are now being specifically targeted and killed by the Taliban.

Experts fear that Afghanistan will become only more bloody next year, and with the Taliban moving in on Afghanistan's cities, and seemingly gaining strength by the month, the risk of greatly increased military casualties will surely rise as troops engage an enemy growing in number and confidence.

From NPR :

Michael Fullilove, head of the Global Studies Program at the Lowy Institute in Sydney, says that Afghanistan is likely to be the big issue for Australian forces over the next year.

"We haven't tested public opinion as to how Australians would react to larger numbers of casualties than we've suffered to date," Fullilove says.

That test could come sooner than the new prime minister may want, White says. The security situation in Afghanistan is deteriorating, and some allies are wavering on their commitment there, he says. White says that Rudd has mentioned sending in more troops to replace departing ally troops.

"Once he looks at what's actually happening on the ground there, in what has, I think, in Afghanistan, been a very grim year, he'll need to think very carefully whether it's sensible to send young Australians on dangerous missions where the chances of success are so low," White says.

The Afghanistan War has not divided Australia in the same way that the Iraq War did. But with three Australian troops killed in only a matter of weeks, and more than a dozen seriously wounded in 2007 alone, the vague disinterest many Australians have towards what is going on in Afghanistan may soon become organised opposition.


Australian Commando In Afghanistan Gave His Life To Save His Mates

20% Of Australia's Heroin Comes From Afghanistan - Rudd Sends Cops To Burn Crops

Australian Soldiers Cheaper Than Robots

Troops In Afghanistan Denied High-Tech Bomb Detecting Bots

An Australian soldier in Afghanistan, Sergeant Michael Lyddiard, had his arm and eye blown away over the weekend when a roadside bomb detonated only a metre from his face. He was flown to a medical base in Germany and members of his family have now joined him there. Some 28 Australian soldiers have been wounded in Afghanistan since 2001, two have died.

On that back of the news of Sergeant Lyddiard's injuries comes the shocking revelation that Australian troops have been denied the kind of bomb-detecting robot technology that has saved the lives of countless American and NATO troops in Afghanistan :

...the Howard Government cancelled work in 2004 to develop robotic technology capable of dealing with roadside bombs.

The aim of the program was to develop robotic technology to counter IEDs. Questions are now being asked inside Defence as to why Australian soldiers and explosive detector dogs are being used to render roadside bombs safe when other NATO forces use advanced robotics.

Thousands of remote-control mine and IED detectors have been rushed to Afghanistan and Iraq by the US military, with more than 5000 in operation last April, compared with 150 in 2004.

The ADF, however, relies mainly on sniffer dogs and perilous manual defusing, such as the job Sgt Lyddiard was attempting when the device exploded in front of him.

The robot plan, known by its army designation Project Land 133, was shut down by former defence minister Robert Hill.

A spokesman for Defence Minister Brendan Nelson yesterday admitted the project had been shut down but said the decision was taken on the advice of the army.

Brendan "We Didn't Do It" Nelson keeps up his usual standards of buck-passing.

What's happened to the endless promises made by John Howard and defence ministers Hill and Nelson that Australian soldiers could always count on being given the very best equipment during overseas deployments?

The grim truth is that even though the Australian government spends almost $1 billion a year fighting the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, our troops are forced to continually cut corners and often have to make do with inferior or substandard equipment.

Robot development programs are expensive, and number crunchers have clearly worked out that it's cheaper to put soldiers' lives at risk than to spend the money needed to build and deploy bomb-detecting robots.

It's a miracle the casualties in Afghanistan, and Iraq, have not been higher.

Afghanistan : Australian Troops Refused To Join Fight Against Taliban That Left Some 70 Civilians Dead



According to this story, Australian troops refused to take part in one of the biggest battles against the Taliban in the history of the current Afghanistan war.

Australian troops were involved in the planning of the June battle in the Chora Valley, which saw NATO forces taking on an estimated 500 Taliban fighters, but reportedly pulled out when they realized their rules of engagement would restrict their ability to defend themselves.

More on this here :

Most of the 60 to 70 civilians killed when Dutch forces repelled a 500-strong Taliban assault in the Chora Valley, 30 kilometres from the Australian and Dutch base at Tarin Kowt in Oruzgan province, died as a result of bombing and artillery fire, human rights investigators have found.

In the days after the battle, the Australian Defence Force issued two statements stressing Australian troops were not involved in the fighting. In the carefully worded statements, Defence Minister Brendan Nelson and senior military officers expressed concern about civilian casualties in the battle.

The chief of the Australian Army, Lieutenant-General Peter Leahy, last week reiterated Australia's commitment to avoiding civilian deaths wherever possible. "Nothing undermines the credibility of our efforts more than the unintended killing of civilians," he said.

Particularly controversial is the use of Dutch artillery, which fired high explosive shells into the Chora Valley from Tarin Kowt, 30 kilometres away.

In the case of the fighting in the Chora Valley from June 16 to 19, The Sunday Age believes a key issue for the Australians was the inability to discriminate between civilians and the Taliban, who had occupied local houses.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai said the Dutch decision to fire from such a distance was bound to claim civilian lives.

In his speech last Wednesday, General Leahy said: "In complex urban terrain there is a constant risk of striking innocent civilians." But the army had learnt that "unless we can provide pervasive security without inflicting collateral damage on the … population, our supposed strengths can be turned into glaring weaknesses".

An Australian SAS soldier, Sergeant Mathew Locke, was killed on Thursday by Taliban fighters, during the first day of a new offensive in the Chora Valley.

More than 1500 British, Dutch, Afghan and Australian troops are believed to now be fighting in this offensive.

Three Australian servicemen have been killed in Afghanistan since 2001, with at least two dozen wounded or suffering crippling PTSD.

Military experts are downplaying Prime Minister Howard's claims that the Taliban are directly targeting Australian troops, particularly the SAS, as the Taliban rarely engage in direct confrontations, knowing they will be flogged by the superior firepower, experience and training.

The SAS Association is now urging the government to increase compensation for war casualties.

PM claims Australian Troops Are Being Targeted By Taliban

Australian Military Hides Truth Of 'War On Terror' Casualties

Most Australians Have No Idea Of The Scale Of Violence Our Soldiers Have Experienced In Iraq And Afghanistan

Australian Defence Force chiefs kept secret the death of soldier David Pearce for some 10 hours, according to this story. It's the latest example of a carefully designed program within the defence force, initiated by the Howard government, of information suppression and control, mostly aimed at keeping quiet, for as long as possible, the truth about the violence Australian soldiers are encountering in Iraq and Afghanistan :

...the Afghanistan and Iraq deployments remain among the most secretive ever undertaken by our forces.

The attack in which Trooper Pearce died was the latest in a six-month barrage involving Australian troops in the Oruzgan Province.

About 25 roadside explosions targeting Coalition forces have been recorded there since June.

It is often days before the Australian Defence Force acknowledges such engagements. Some attacks, especially those involving special forces troops, are not spoken of publicly at all.

At least seven times since August the ADF has failed to release details of hostile engagements between Australian soldiers and the enemy until at least two days after the attacks.

The tactic is to invoke an information blackout on the most serious incidents and release minimal information when it has been rigorously vetted by senior officers and bureaucrats.

Australia has suffered four military deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan.

However, the conflicts have also produced more than 50 battlefield injuries and more than a dozen soldiers are believed to have been permanently incapacitated as a result.

Along with the hundreds of veterans now suffering the horrors of what will likely prove to be lifelong post-traumatic stress disorder. Some of those who are being hammered by the early stages of PTSD are as young as 20 years old. Unofficially, divorce rates for Australian 'War on Terror' veterans are soaring, as are incidents of suicide, drug abuse, alcoholism and domestic violence.

By downplaying, controlling and outright censoring the truth of what is happening to Australian soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan, the veterans who have returned from those wars are now encountering a public that can barely comprehend what they've gone through.

How are non-military associated Australians expected to know how horrific many of the veterans tours of duty have been when so little of the facts find their way into the Australian media?

The full impact of this kind of censorship and suppression by military chiefs, under the guidance and encouragement of the Howard government, will become clear in the next decade when the long-term effects and impact of PTSD for these veterans become clearer.

As with the veterans of the Vietnam War, the new generation of veterans will eventually be forced to ask for more help and will be faced with a public that doesn't understand, because they don't know, what the scale of the violence they experienced during their deployments done to their lives and their families.

Let's hope the current generation of youth learn how to look after the needs of 'WoT' veterans better than the Baby Boomers did for the veterans of Korea and Vietnam.


UPDATE : The Australian Defence Force is now denying there was a cover-up, or a failure to reveal details with due haste of the death of soldier David Pearce.

Anti-War 'Lefties' Fail To Live Up To Soldier-Hating Cliches

Tim Blair Forced To Trawl Blog Comments To Nail 'Peaceniks'

You can easily detect the tollings of disappointment in Tim Blair's post on reactions to the death of Australian soldier, David Pearce.

No doubt Blair was all geared up to do a nice big fat post for his fans highlighting all those 'Evil 'Lefty' bloggers and columnists who saw fit to use the tragedy of Pearce's death in Afghanistan to spew anti-Howard and anti-soldier hatred.

But even though he left it almost a full day, Blair was unable to find even one Australian 'lefty' blogger who was ragging on the troops, or spilling anti-war rhetoric, to quote from in his long post.

Not one.

So what did Blair do?

He was forced to trawl through hundreds of comments from an online media site, so he could scrape together a measly 14 or so comments that fitted his pre-planned post, which he then titled :

Leftist Peacenik Sampler

But Blair couldn't go to grim 'Lefty' media hangouts like The Sydney Morning Herald or the Melbourne Age, to round up the 14 or so comments he knew would set his mostly right-wing American readers aflaming. He was forced to find them on the main portal site, news.com.au, for the tabloid newspaper he works for, The Daily Telegraph.

And how did Blair know those 14 or so News Limited media reading commenters were 'Leftist Peaceniks'?

Since when did Murdoch's media demand to know political affiliation for people wanting to comment on news stories on Murdoch media sites?

Since never.

But Blair knew he had to deliver a big fat post on his blog full of examples of vile Australian 'Lefty' soldier hate for his readers, or they'd be so disappointed. Not only disappointed, but they might start believing the very obvious truth that the vast majority of all Australians, whether they vote for John Howard or not, hold absolutely no animosity at all for soldiers who have gone to war, mostly because so many Australian families have long histories marked and punctuated by the tragedy of traumatised war veterans who were unable to explain what had happened to them.

Trawling comments and then quoting them is a standard tactic of Blair's American right-wing blogging and conservative media allies. Read through enough comments and you will be guaranteed to find people spilling the kind of bile you can use to make whatever pathetic point you want. And it's so much more dramatic, and downright grim, when you use this technique for blog posts on the deaths of soldiers, less than 24 hours after the tragedy has occurred.

You're a sad man, Blair, and you're trying to create an atmosphere of division and hate that doesn't actually exist in any large or even noticeable way in our society, outside of the media. Outside of blogs like your own.

But if your intention is to waste your excellent writing talents on becoming the next Piers Akerman or Andrew Bolt, then congratulations are due : you've just proved you're already there.

Australian Soldier Killed By IED Attack In Afghanistan


Australians on patrol in Afghanistan

Update : The soldier who was killed yesterday in Afghanistan was David Pearce, 41. He leaves behind a wife and two children.

Defence Minister Brendan Nelson waited only hours after the official announcement of the soldier's death to begin politicising the tragedy, by kicking off the 'Blame Iran' campaign, though Nelson admitted he has no proof the IED that killed Pearce comes from Iran.


Yesterday, an IED tore through an Australian patrol in the southern Oruzgan province in Afghanistan killing one Australian soldier, wounding another, and injuring three local children.

The injured soldier was airlifted to a medical base and was reported to have serious injuries, though they are not believed to be life-threatening.

The death of the soldier marks the first combat-related fatality for Australia in Afghanistan or Iraq during the 'War on Terror', as a direct result of enemy action.

Hopefully both sides of politics will be able to refrain from seeking political capital from the death of this soldier, but don't bet on it.

If anything, the death of the soldier, and the blanket media coverage that the arrival of his body back home will generate, along with the politician-heavy funeral and memorial service, is bound to ramp up the ferocity of debate here over the future role of Australian troops in the 'War on Terror'.

The Labor Party is currently planning to withdraw most of the combat troops from Iraq in 2008, should it win office, but leader Kevin Rudd recently committed to an ongoing deployment of troops to Afghanistan.

Some 1000 Australian soldiers are based at Camp Holland, in the Oruzgan province, according to ABC News.

More than 50% of Australians now oppose Australia's involvement in military action in Afghanistan.

Presumably the Taliban are well aware there is a federal election drawing near in Australia. The death of the soldier is likely to return Australia's involvement in the 'War on Terror' to the top rung of the pre-election campaign issues.

Australian troops have endured massive fighting against the Taliban in recent months, killing dozens of militants. More than six Australian soldiers have been injured since June in gunfights with the Taliban.

The fatal IED attack yesterday has been reported have specifically targeted Australian troops.

The Taliban would clearly know who the Australians are, and what their uniforms and vehicles look like.

Angry Australian Soldiers Blows Whistle On Top Secret Taliban Fight

Six Diggers Wounded As Australian Special Forces Kill 150 Taliban

"Most Intense" Battles Since Vietnam War




By Darryl Mason

A soldier involved in the fight against the Taliban and Al Qaeda in Afghanistan has revealed his anger at the decision to pull an Australian Special Forces team out of an area now shaping up as the largest battlefield in the 'War On Terror'.

He's angry because the Australian Defence Force is not going to send in replacement forces when the task force leaves.

"It's not right to pull out. We shouldn't just go there for a shoot 'em up and then come home..."

The soldier is referring to news only now reaching Australian media.

In July, Australian special forces and commando units were involved in a nine day long battle against the Taliban in Southern Afghanistan.

150 Taliban are reported to have been killed by the Australian teams, with six Australians suffering serious wounds during the fighting.

From news.com :

"In the most intense battles since the Vietnam War, Diggers from the Special Forces Task Group used superior weapons and overwhelming airborne fire support from USAF AC-130 Hercules Spectre gunships.

Codenamed Operation Perth, the hardest fighting took place in July during search-and-destroy missions in the Chora district, about 40km northeast of the Australian base at Tarin Khowt, in southern Afghanistan.

During the year-long operation the three rotations of the task group have sustained 11 casualties, including several men seriously wounded.

One commando had part of his jaw blown off, another was shot in the buttocks and an SAS specialist was hit in the abdomen. Amazingly, the round missed his vital organs.

In one action, six commandos, including the company sergeant major, who sustained leg injuries, were wounded by an enemy rocket-propelled grenade.

...at the height of the battle, three AC-130 Spectre aircraft ran out of ammunition.

The task group includes a commando platoon of 50 men from the Sydney-based 4RAR and 40 SAS troopers from the unit's No.3 squadron. The 100 support soldiers include chemical weapons experts from the Incident Response Regiment.

If the Australian government is so committed to the 'War On Terror', why are they pulling special forces teams out of battlefields where the fighting appears most intense?

Running out of money? The Australian government has committed more than $20 billion to defence and war-fighting in the next few years. This may be a key reason why they are so enthusiastic about flogging valuable assets of the Australian taxpayers, like Telstra and Medibank Private.

Or does the Prime Minister, John Howard, in particular, fear the reaction of the public if the body count of Australian soldiers killed fighting the 'War On Terror' starts to rise?

One thing is clear. Australian special forces are not happy at all about being wrenched away from the battlefields where the fight against the Taliban and Al Qaeda is so vitally important, and proving to be extremely decisive.

No doubt they fear a repeat of what happened last time, in late 2001, when the focus for Australia's military was pulled away from the war in Afghanistan to prepare for the 'War On Iraq'.

A clear majority of military analysts across the world now believe moving the 'War On Terror' fight away from Afghanistan to focus on deposing Saddam Hussein is chief amongst the key reasons why the Taliban have been able to gain back so much ground in Southern Afghanistan.

Australian special forces have a hard-won and highly respected reputation amongst the world's military forces for never walking away from a fight.

But now it seems at least some those forces don't have a choice when it comes to leaving Southern Afghanistan.

Howard and his 'War On Terror' chiefs have made their decision.

They're out. Presumably to prepare for deployment elsewhere.

Syria and/or Iran perhaps?