It's actually quite pretty (again, relatively speaking), but this slug is most likely an Arion rufus, a species that's native to Europe, but has been found in British Columbia and is apparently now also at large in Ontario. Hermaphroditic in nature, some slugs can even knock themselves up, so it only takes a single invader to build an army. Once the population is established, the slugs become (and I quote) the "slow moving lions of the vegetable world."

So how do you get rid of them? The story offers two possibilities. First, you can leave out beer for the slugs. They're attracted to fermented yeast, but they're a little dumb and they can't swim, so they'll end up crawling in and drowning themselves. The other option: Collect the slugs when they come out at night and "immerse them in boiling water." The article, unfortunately, does not mention whether you can then eat Arion rufus in a nice butter sauce.

10 cm Etobicoke Slug a Big, Slimy Mystery in the Toronto Star

(Thanks, Margaret Atwood. Yes, that Margaret Atwood.)

Image taken by Etobicoke, Canada resident Lisa Bendall. Used under fair use.

Taliban fighters pose with weapons on 19 August. The leadership has posted a statement online saying they pose no threat to other countries. Photograph: Reuters

The Taliban have issued an English-language statement claiming they pose no international threat – a move that will fuel the debate among American and European policymakers over whether the hardline Afghan insurgent group can be split away from the international militants of al-Qaida.

The statement came amid reports that Barack Obama's military advisers are shifting the focus of US operations to target al-Qaida in Pakistan while downplaying the threat posed to America by the Taliban.

Published on the eighth anniversary of the first coalition strikes on Afghanistan in 2001, the Taliban communique declares the militants' aim to be the "obtainment of independence and establishment of an Islamic system".

"We did not have any agenda to harm other countries including Europe nor we have such agenda today," said the statement, which was posted on a known Taliban website on Wednesday.

"Still, if you want to turn the country of the proud and pious Afghans into a colony, then know that we have an unwavering determination and have braced for a prolonged war."

Though the statement's authenticity is yet to be confirmed, the claim would appear to be evidence at the very least that the Taliban are seeking to influence the strategic argument in the west.

The statements may equally be a sign that senior Taliban figures are reassessing the movement's longstanding – though often tense – alliance with al-Qaida.

In a recent exchange of emails with the Guardian, a Taliban spokesman avoided questions on the relationship between the Afghan insurgents and Osama bin Laden. The spokesman said the Taliban closely monitored public opinion in western Europe and policy arguments in the US.

As Obama continues to reassess the Afghan war strategy, advisers have told the New York Times that he had been presented with an approach that might not require the increase in troop numbers in Afghanistan called for by the most senior US and Nato general in the region, General Stanley McChrystal.

Obama will today meet with the secretary of state, Hilary Clinton, and vice-president, Joe Biden, who has been arguing for months that Pakistan is a greater priority than Afghanistan.

The New York Times said that Clinton and the defence secretary, Robert Gates, have warned that the Taliban in Afghanistan remain linked to al-Qaida and would give its fighters haven again if the Taliban regained control of all or large parts of Afghanistan.

"Clearly, al-Qaida is a threat not only to the US homeland and American interests abroad, but it has a murderous agenda," one senior administration official said. "We want to destroy its leadership, its infrastructure and its capability."

The official contrasted that with the Taliban, which the administration has begun to define as an indigenous group that aspires to reclaim territory and rule the country, but does not express ambitions of attacking the US. "When the two [groups] are aligned it's mainly on the tactical front," the official said, adding that al-Qaida had fewer than 100 fighters in Afghanistan.

Yesterday, the White House confirmed that Obama received McChrystal's troop reinforcements request a week ago. It is said to include a range of options, from adding as few as 10,000 additional combat troops to McChrystal's strong preference for as many as 40,000.

The renewed attention on Pakistan comes amid a recognition that the US can neither win the eight-year-old conflict in Afghanistan nor succeed more broadly against al-Qaida without help from Islamabad.

Obama and some of his key aides are increasingly pointing to recent successes against al-Qaida through targeted missile strikes and raids in Pakistan, Somalia and elsewhere. Obama said on Tuesday that al-Qaida had "lost operational capacity" as a result.

Serious doubts about the Afghan government have led some to question whether an effective counterinsurgency mission is possible.

McChrystal's recommended approach calls for additional troops in Afghanistan for a counterinsurgency campaign to defeat the Taliban, build up the central government and deny al-Qaida its refuge.

McChrystal, whose plan is reminiscent of Bush's troop "surge" in Iraq in 2008, says extra troops are crucial to turn around a war that probably will be won or lost during the next 12 months.

At the opposite end of the spectrum, an alternative favoured most prominently by Biden would keep the American force in Afghanistan at around the 68,000 already authorised, including the 21,000 more troops Obama ordered this year, but increase the use of surgical strikes with Predator drones and special forces.

Peter Galbraith was sacked after disagreements with his boss Kai Eide. Photograph: Toby Talbot/Associated Press

A former senior United Nations diplomat in Kabul has launched a scathing attack on the UN's handling of Afghanistan's disputed elections, claiming that almost one in three of the votes cast for president Hamid Karzai were fraudulent.

Writing in today's Washington Post, Peter Galbraith, the former deputy head of the UN mission in Afghanistan, singled out his former boss Kai Eide for criticism, saying that he had deliberately downplayed the level of cheating in an election where in one region "10 times as many votes were recorded as voters actually cast".

Galbraith, who was sacked last week after his disagreements with Eide about how to deal with electoral fraud became public, said the extraordinary level of fraud in the August vote "has handed the Taliban its greatest strategic victory in eight years of fighting the United States and its Afghan partners".

The election was a "foreseeable train wreck", he said, with Eide – the Norwegian diplomat in charge of the UN mission – standing idle as Afghan election authorities and ministers loyal to the president avoided taking steps that could have reduced massive fraud.

The extraordinary intervention could torpedo what many diplomats in Kabul suspect is an attempt by Eide and the US to minimise further controversy over fraud allegations and move quickly to declare Karzai the re-elected president of Afghanistan.

Opposition politicians, including Abdullah Abdullah, the second-placed candidate, who wants to see a run-off vote, have seized on remarks made by Galbraith since he was sacked by Ban Ki-moon, the UN secretary general, last Wednesday.

Yesterday Abdullah accused Eide of "giving a green card for fraud to determine the outcome of the election".

A war of words between Galbraith and the UN – which has attempted to characterise the row as a "personality dispute" – has been gradually escalating since he was sacked last week.

In a letter to Ban, which was leaked to the New York Times, Galbraith made a number of devastating allegations against Eide, including the claim that the Norwegian diplomat ordered him not to hand over to election officials information that showed turnout had been tiny in the south, where the Taliban intimidation campaign against voters was most effective.

He also said Eide told him to stop lobbying for the elimination of "ghost polling stations" – voting centres in areas of the country that were too dangerous to actually open, but which nonetheless received ballot papers that could be filled out by corrupt officials.

Galbraith also claimed Eide prevented him from trying to stop the Independent Election Commission from abandoning its own safeguards, which would have excluded fraudulent ballots from the count, probably reducing Karzai's score to below 50%, forcing a second-round vote.

Eide told him to back off, Galbraith said, after Karzai ordered his foreign minister to protest that the American was interfering in Afghan affairs. He said the Afghan government threatened him with expulsion.

His article in the Washington Post went even further with its claim that a third of Karzai's votes were fraudulent. If true, that would mean the president received well under the 50% of all votes required for him to win on the first round.

Preliminary results give Karzai 55% and Abdullah 28%.

The Election Complaints Commission has ordered an audit of 10% of the 3,063 votes that have been deemed to be suspicious because of a very high turnout or where nearly all the votes went to a single candidate.

Galbraith also warned of the huge political dangers if the outcome of the vote is not accepted by the Tajiks, Afghanistan's second-largest ethnic group, who are predominant in the north and seen as Abdullah's main constituency.

"If the Tajiks believe that fraud denied their candidate the chance to compete in a second round, they may respond by simply not recognising the authority of the central government," he said.

He also said the high level of fraud "virtually guarantees that a government emerging from the tainted vote will not be credible with many Afghans", destroying President Barack Obama's hopes of having a legitimate partner in the country to help implement his strategy.

After Leaflet Drop Kills Afghan Girl, a Search for Safer Psyop Tech. Missiles, Anyone?

• By David Hambling
• September 30, 2009

The Royal Air Force has accidentally killed a young girl in Afghanistan — by dropping a box of leaflets on her. The British Ministry of Defence is carrying out a full investigation. Meanwhile, the seemingly antiquated practice of leaflet bombing continues. In the 21st century, it remains one of the primary tools of psychological warfare; U.S. Special Operations Command is even looking to build leaflet-carrying missiles. And while top American commander Gen. Stanley McChrystal has virtually banned “kinetic” air strikes, paper bombs are in regular use.

According to the BBC, the leaflet box was supposed to open in mid-air, spreading pro-coalition propaganda over rural Helmand province. But the container failed to break apart, landing on top of the girl, who died later in the hospital.

Leaflets have been used by militaries since at least the Napoleonic wars, when the British navy dropped them over France using kites. And they continue to be employed, because leaflets have some advantages over other media. Radio and TV are fine if the audience happen to be tuned in at the time, but printed matter is durable. As the U.S. Army’s Psychological Operations Field Manual explains, a printed leaflet has the advantage that it can be passed from person to person without the message being altered. It can convey a complex message which can be reinforced with pictures if the recipient is illiterate. And a leaflet can be hidden and read in private, and shared around with others.

Delivery methods have ranged from artillery and mortar shells to loose airdrop by hand to “leaflet landmines.” The M129E1/E2 Psychological Operations Leaflet Bomb weighs 200 pounds and can disperse some 60,000 to 80,000 leaflets which are scattered by a length of detonator cord.

However, U.S. Special Operations Command is looking for a wider range of options, and their current R&D budget calls for a “Next Generation Leaflet Delivery System,” which will:

…provide forces a family of systems consisting of unmanned air vehicles, drones,
missiles, and leaflet boxes that safely and accurately disseminate variable size and weight paper and electronic leaflets to large area targets, at short (10-750 miles) and long (>750 miles) ranges. These systems can be utilized in peacetime and all threat environments across the spectrum of conflict, and are compatible with current and future U.S. aircraft.

The fact that the commandos are seriously developing missiles to deliver leaflets shows the importance given to this mission. Hopefully, improved safety measures will mean less chance of tragic accidents.But the technology does not stop there. In addition to digital broadcast capability and advanced loudspeakers, new psychological operations tech also includes development of appropriate emerging technologies including “remote controlled electronic paper.”

This sounds a lot like the video advertising inserts being pioneered by Entertainment Weekly, which includes a wafer-thin screen which plays up to 40 minutes of video. (See “video in print” in action here, featuring Tony Stark, appropriately enough.) It’s like an evolution of the musical greeting cards, with added video. But the difference with the Special Operations version is that it is remote-controlled, so presumably new messages or video can be sent as required. The applications for such a device would be endless, and as a shiny gadget it would have a much greater chance of being picked up, retained and shown around — if it can be made cheap enough to distribute in significant quantities.

Photo: DoD

Labour MP Eric Joyce, who has resigned over the government's Afghanistan strategy. Photograph: Sean Dempsey/PA

The parliamentary aide to Bob Ainsworth, the defence secretary, has resigned over Afghanistan, it was confirmed tonight.

In a letter to Gordon Brown, Eric Joyce called on the prime minister to make it clear to the British people that the Afghanistan campaign was "time limited".

He said the public would not accept for "much longer that our losses can be justified by simply referring to the risk of greater terrorism on our streets".

Joyce, who was parliamentary private secretary to Mr Ainsworth, was critical of government policy in Afghanistan and called for a reduction in the British commitment.

He said Labour would not win the next general election until it got a "grip" on defence and demanded an exit strategy from Afghanistan during the next parliament.

He revealed that he had told his boss a number of weeks ago that he intended to resign and now was the "least disruptive" time to go.

The former army major said: "I do not think the British people will support the physical risk to our servicemen and women unless they can be given confidence that Afghanistan's government has been properly elected and has a clear intent to deal with the corruption there which has continued unabated in recent years."

He added: "We also need to make it clear that our commitment in Afghanistan is high but time-limited.

"It should be possible now to say that we will move off our present war-footing and reduce our forces there substantially during our next term in government."

Defence secretary Ainsworth said: "Eric Joyce is, of course, entitled to his opinion and while we thank him for his service as a junior parliamentary aide, it is vital that we have a leadership team that is fully committed to our mission in Afghanistan.

"The picture he paints is not one that I nor many people within the MoD recognise, whether military or civilian.

"Everyone in defence, and the wider government, is fully committed to ensuring that our forces succeed in the operations on which they are engaged in Afghanistan, and that they have the necessary equipment and support to do the job.

"Our mission in Afghanistan is vital to our national security. We will not walk away from that responsibility."

The US secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, has ordered an investigation into allegations that private contractors employed to protect the American embassy in Afghanistan were engaged in "deviant and lewd" parties that have been compared to Lord of the Flies.

The decision to launch the inquiry came after an independent group sent her a 10-page dossier yesterday claiming that the security guards at the embassy had been engaged in drunken parties involving prostitutes and the kind of ritual humiliation associated with gang initiation. Pictures and video footage were attached to the dossier.

The dossier, compiled by the independent investigative group Project on Government Insight, includes an email allegedly from a guard currently serving in Kabul describing scenes in which guards and supervisors are "peeing on people, eating potato chips out of [buttock] cracks, vodka shots out of [buttock] cracks (there is video of that one), broken doors after drnken [sic] brawls, threats and intimidation from those leaders participating in this activity".

The allegations are an embarrassment at a time when the Obama administration is struggling to win hearts and minds in Afghanistan and the Muslim world in general. It comes against the backdrop of the continuing controversy over the widespread use by the US of private contractors in war zones, of which the most notorious was Blackwater, now named Xe.

The group at the centre of the new allegations are the ArmorGroup, part of the Florida-based Wackenhut group, one of the biggest private security organisations in the US. The organisation did not respond immediately today to the allegations.

The Project on Government Insight, which was established in 1981 to track military procurement and bring to light evidence of any corruption, described the environment at Camp Sullivan, where the guards were housed outside Kabul, as comparable to the anarchy in William Golding's Lord of the Flies.

It said about 300 of the 450 ArmorGroup guards are Gurkhas and the rest are a mix of Australians, South Africans and Americans.

In the dossier, it said that guards were "engaging in near-weekly deviant hazing and humiliation of subordinates" . It claimed that some guards had barricaded themselves in their rooms out of fear that the alleged hazing might harm them physically.

It further claims that guard force supervisors "made no secret that, to celebrate a birthday, they brought prostitutes into Camp Sullivan, which maintains a sign-in log."

According to the report, Afghan nationals, as Muslims, were humiliated by the behaviour and the apparently free-flowing use of alcohol.

The pictures could be picked up by the Taliban and used as propaganda against the US and its allies. But the Project on Government Insight stressed that comparisons should not be made with the pictures of abuse at the Iraqi prison, Abu Ghraib, because no allegations of torture are being made. The report says that the general breakdown in discipline poses a threat to the security of the embassy.

Ian Kelly, the state department spokesman, said of the reports of wild, anarchic partying: "These are very serious allegations, and we are treating them that way." Clinton has "zero tolerance" for the behaviour described and has directed a "review of the whole system" for farming out security to private contractors that may have threatened the safety of embassy personnel, Kelly said.

The embassy said today: "Nothing is more important to us than the safety and security of all embassy personnel - Americans and Afghan - and respect for the cultural and religious values of all Afghans."

It added: "We have taken immediate steps to review all local guard force policies and procedures and have taken all possible measures to ensure our security is sound."

Senator Claire McCaskill, a Democrat who heads a subcommittee on contractor oversight, wrote to the state department calling for the inquiry in the light of the report. McCaskill's committee earlier this year conducted its own hearings on the involvement of ArmorGroup in Afghanistan.

— By Daniel Schulman | Tue September 1, 2009 10:19 AM PST

 

Drunken brawls, prostitutes, hazing and humiliation, taking vodka shots out of buttcracks— no, the perpetrators of these Animal House-like antics aren't some depraved frat brothers. They are the private security contractors guarding Camp Sullivan, otherwise known as the US Embassy in Kabul.

These allegations, and many more, are contained in a letter sent to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Tuesday by the Project on Government Oversight, which has been investigating the embassy security contract held by ArmorGroup North America (a subsidiary of Wackenhut, which is in turn owned by the security behemoth G4S). The contractor was the subject of a congressional probe earlier this summer that found serious lapses in the company's handling of the embassy security contract, which internal State Department documents said left the embassy compound "in jeopardy." Nevertheless, the government opted to extend the company's 5-year, $189 million contract for another year. 

Underscoring the scope of the problems within ArmorGroup's Afghanistan operation, POGO says that nearly a tenth of the company's 450-man embassy security force contacted the watchdog group to "express concerns about and provide evidence of a pattern of blatant, longstanding violations of the security contract, and of a pervasive breakdown in the chain of command and guard force discipline and morale."

In the letter to Clinton, POGO executive director Danielle Brian writes:

This environment has resulted in chronic turnover by U.S./ex-pat guards. According to the State Department, "nearly 90% of the incumbent US/Expats left within the first six months of contract performance." According to POGO sources, the U.S./ex-pat guard turnover may be as high as 100 percent annually. This untenable turnover prevents the guard force from developing team cohesion, and requires constant training for new replacement recruits. The guards have come to POGO because they say they believe strongly in the mission, but are concerned that many good guards are quitting out of frustration or being fired for refusing to participate in the misconduct, and that those responsible for the misconduct are not being held accountable.

 

Brian's letter suggests that Wackenhut Vice President Sam Brinkley, who testified before a Senate panel in June about ArmorGroup's performance of the embassy contract, may have misled Congress.

Despite Wackenhut Vice President Sam Brinkley's sworn Senate testimony that "…the Kabul contract has been fully-staffed since January 2009…" the truth is that chronic understaffing of the guard force continues to be a major problem. And evidence suggests Mr. Brinkley knew that. Around March, according to numerous participants, he was confronted by some 50 guards at Camp Sullivan who complained to him directly about a severe, ongoing guard shortage. Then, in an April 2009 memo to a State Department official, U.S. Embassy Kabul guard force Commander Werner Ilic reported that guard shortages had caused chronic sleep deprivation among his men. He described a situation in which guards habitually face 14-hour-day work cycles extending for as many as eight weeks in a row, frequently alternating between day and night shifts. He concluded that "this ultimately diminishes the LGF's [Local Guard Force's] ability to provide security." The contract with the State Department specifies that guards may not be on duty for longer than 12 consecutive hours. Interviewees and documents reveal that short-staffing frequently results in the denial of contractually guaranteed leave and vacation, and that those who do not comply are threatened with termination or actually fired.

 

But criticisms of failing to meet manpower obligations are nothing compared to the bacchanalian activities ArmorGroup's personnel were allegedly engaged in.

Guards have come to POGO with allegations and photographic evidence that some supervisors and guards are engaging in near-weekly deviant hazing and humiliation of subordinates. Witnesses report that the highest levels of AGNA management in Kabul are aware of and have personally observed—or even engaged in—these activities, but have done nothing to stop them. Indeed, management has condoned this misconduct, declining to take disciplinary action against those responsible and allowing two of the worst offending supervisors to resign and allegedly move on to work on other U.S. contracts. The lewd and deviant behavior of approximately 30 supervisors and guards has resulted in complete distrust of leadership and a breakdown of the chain of command, compromising security.

Numerous emails, photographs, and videos portray a Lord of the Flies environment. One email from a current guard describes scenes in which guards and supervisors are "peeing on people, eating potato chips out of [buttock] cracks, vodka shots out of [buttock] cracks (there is video of that one), broken doors after drnken [sic] brawls, threats and intimidation from those leaders participating in this activity…." Photograph after photograph shows guards—including supervisors—at parties in various stages of nudity, sometimes fondling each other. These parties take place just a few yards from the housing of other supervisors.

 

Multiple guards say this deviant hazing has created a climate of fear and coercion, with those who declined to participate often ridiculed, humiliated, demoted, or even fired. The result is an environment that is dangerous and volatile. Some guards have reported barricading themselves in their rooms for fear that those carrying out the hazing will harm them physically. Others have reported that AGNA management has begun to conduct a witch hunt to identify employees who have provided information about this atmosphere to POGO.

 

These allegations raise serious questions about why ArmorGroup has been allowed to retain this important contract, which gives the company the responsibility for protecting the lives of the hundreds of diplomats, officials, and others who work within the embassy compound. Also in question is the State Department's ability to provide adequate oversight of contractors under its jurisdiction. It should at least be able to ensure that its embassy doesn't provide the backdrop for a Contractors Gone Wild video. 

POGO is calling on the State Department to launch an independent investigation of the Kabul embassy contract and to "consider initiating suspension and debarment proceedings against the companies ArmorGroup North America." As for the State Department officials who were supposed to be providing oversight, the watchdog says they, too, should be held accountable. Perhaps as punishment they ought to be forced to watch the buttcrack vodka shot video.

Follow Daniel Schulman on Twitter.

 

Published: 6:40AM BST 26 Aug 2009

A map drawn up by Soviet generals shows that the military had charted an armoured invasion of the city, for distribution to frontline commanders. The plans would be put into action if relations between the UK and the USSR deteriorated further.

The maps ignored one-way streets and rush hour jams, marking the lines of an assault in bold orange, the Guardian reports. According to the documents, troops would sweep into the centre past Old Trafford and the current site of the Manchester Museum of Science and Industry.

"There wasn't much they missed," said Chris Perkins, a lecturer in geography at Manchester University, and the organiser of an exhibition opening tomorrow which reveals the map to its potential victims for the first time.

"They clearly took information from road atlases – some of them not quite up to date – but they also had details on nuclear sites and Strangeways prison, which the Ordnance Survey of the day had deliberately left out."

The chart, with its Cyrillic transliterations of place names such as Salford, Irmston and Hulme, was part of a worldwide programme drawn up by Soviet bureaucrats.

Mr Perkins told the paper: "They had maps of everywhere from here to the Congo, but this is an 'A-l ist' effort – a place which they really thought they might need to know one day."

Researched fewer than 40 years ago, the map used road widths and load-bearing statistics to plot advance routes for tanks, ruling out older, crooked lanes where armour might be trapped by urban guerrilla warfare. The Soviet planners also used a colour code for local objectives: industrial sites in black, administrative buildings purple, and military installations green.

The map came to light after the collapse of the Communist system. Along with similar charts of other western and US strategic centres, it was sold by military mapmakers in the chaotic aftermath of perestroika and glasnost.

"The managers of individual printing factories basically went native," said Mr Perkins, whose exhibition of 80 Manchester-related maps is on display until 17 January. "They sold as much stock as they could on the western market, where there was no shortage of customers. I know for a fact that the Ministry of Defence sent a van over there in 1991, to pick up as much as they could."