Operation Enduring Freedom: a civilian’s view By Ian Pounds http://warisacrime.org/content/operation-enduring-freedom-civilian%E2%80%99s-view Obama’s Empire One thing true we can say about war is that truth is its greatest casualty. I am a volunteer teacher. Four years ago I responded to a call from then candidate Barak Obama for a new kind of soldier to [...]
Some anti-war veterans threw away their medals at anti-NATO protests in Chicago [EPA] New York, NY - Whether they are against it or for it, few in the West seem to have a coherent account of war, in Afghanistan or anywhere else. Last week, Occupy Chicago demonstrated against “NATO/G8″ in the name of the “Planet over [...]
No One Hears the Poor By Kathy Kelly http://warisacrime.org/content/no-one-hears-poor Here in Kabul, Voices co-coordinator Buddy Bell and I are guests at the home of the Afghan Peace Volunteers, (APV), where we’ve gotten to know four young boys who are being tutored by the Volunteers in the afternoons, having “retired” from their former [...]
NATO Airstrike Kills Six Afghan Children, Parents Afghan Govt. Announces Probe After Family Slain in Attack by Jason Ditz, May 27, 2012 Print This | Share This A Saturday evening NATO air strike against a village in Paktia Province, Afghanistan, has killed a family of eight, including six children. The strike is the latest [...]
Karzai Flips Out on Rep. Rohrabacher Jason Ditz, May 22, 2012 Print This | Share This | Comment In an interview today on CNN, Afghan President Hamid Karzai was asked about reports that Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R – CA) is banned from entering Afghanistan. Karzai confirmed the ban, and went on to say that: “A [...]
Photo by Reuters I’ve just returned home from the NATO summit and I can’t stop focusing on all that we don’t know after dozens of world leaders met for two days. I have to wonder if the Obama Administration is disappointed in the results. At the end of all of those hours of talking, the [...]
, May 22, 2012 Print This | Share This Following in the rich history of fake endings to wars during the Obama Administration’s first term, the US and other NATO member nations are loudly hyping their endorsement of a transition pact, which is being presented as an “irreversible pullout” of occupation forces. [...]
A bulldozer dumps a load of trash into a burn pit just 300 yards from the runway at Bagram Airfield, January 2012. An Army memo from 2011 found the burn pit is associated with “long-term” health effects on soldiers at Bagram.Photo: U.S. Army Leaked Memo: Afghan ‘Burn Pit’ Could Wreck Troops’ Hearts, Lungs By Spencer [...]
Seepage and Suffering: Obama’s Civil War Scenario for Afghanistan WRITTEN BY CHRIS FLOYD TUESDAY, 22 MAY 2012 16:37 “The winds in Chicago Have torn me to shreds; Reality has always Had too many heads.” – Bob Dylan, “Cold Irons Bound” So now we know the grand plan of the Peace [...]
Islamophobia: A New Form of Colonialism By Ismail Salami In an organized act of brutality, a number of US soldiers went on a house-to-house shooting spree in Zangabad village, Kandahar in March and massacred 16 people including nine children while they were sleeping and all Washington had to say were a [...]
Afghanistan: exit with no strategy The least one can expect of a president who prolonged Afghan suffering by ordering a surge of troops to finish the job, is that he has something that could be dignified with the name of an exit strategy It is disingenuous to claim, as Barack Obama did [...]
War and cheeseburgers By Pepe Escobar A specter haunts Europe. No, it’s not communism; it’s US rating agencies. Greece is bankrupt; the eurozone is about to crack; JP Morgan makes billion-dollar “mistakes”; there’s no (jobs) future for the new generations. And yet the weaponized arm of the Western 0.1% elites occupies [...]
Violence and Greeting Cards by Robert C. Koehler “We will not have great questions decided by irrelevant agencies . . .” My thanks to Medea Benjamin for her recent Common Dreams essay putting the spirit of Julia Ward Howe back into Mother’s Day. I’d forgotten about her 1870 proclamation of disarmament and call to the mothers of Planet Earth to [...]
Supporters of the Catholic Workers social justice and peace movement march on Randolph Street after a protest Monday outside President Barack Obama’s national campaign headquarters at Prudential Plaza, where eight demonstrators were arrested. (José M. Osorio, Chicago Tribune / May 14, 2012) From Afghanistan to Chicago, NATO‘s Hard Sell by Roxane Assaf & Michael Lynn [...]
Afghans learning the skills of stone-working in the Bamiyan valley, where the Taliban blew up two giant buddhas in 2001. Under perfectly carved niches that once held dozens of small buddha statues, the purposeful tap of chisel on stone echoed over the Bamiyan valley for the first time in centuries. Twelve young Afghans had gathered [...]
Ties between the United States and Pakistan have been severely strained over the past year [Reuters] Pakistan has confirmed its president will attend a summit of NATO leaders this weekend in Chicago as negotiations with US to reopen supply lines into Afghanistan continues. Nadeem Hotiana, a Pakistani embassy spokesman in Washington, said on Tuesday that Asif Ali Zardari [...]
General John Allen could become the fourth US and Nato commander to leave Kabul early. Photograph: Ahmad Masood/Reuters Afghanistan is confident the US will stump up billions of extra dollars for its army and police on top of the main chunk of a $4.1bn (£2.6bn) annual budget that is expected to be sealed at a Nato summit [...]
More than a decade after the Taliban were driven from power in Afghanistan, the plight of the country’s women remains dire, with threats and attacks by insurgents on women leaders, schoolgirls, and girls’ schools, and harassment of women for “moral crimes” such as running away from forced marriages or [...]
A member of the 214th Reconnaissance Group flies a Predator aircraft drone in support of ground troops in Iraq and Afghanistan at Davis-Monthan Air Base in Tucson, March 10, 2009. (Photo: Jim Wilson / The New York Times)I kept finding myself thinking about the lunchbox. I was at the all-day Drone Summit in Washington DC [...]
An Afghan Okinawa By The Afghan Peace Volunteers http://warisacrime.org/content/afghan-okinawa There is no U.S. troop withdrawal in 2014. We are ordinary Afghans wishing for peace, and we have eyes and ears and feelings of love and despair, so please read on. The Washington Post, in reporting the recent signing of the “U.S. Afghan Enduring Strategic Partnership Agreement“, stated [...]
President Obama has said he wants to ‘finish the job we started in Afghanistan’ [GALLO/GETTY] President Obama has been of two minds towards Afghanistan since the outset of his presidency. In December 2009, en route to tripling the US military presence there, he declared that US military forces would begin to withdraw from the country in 18 [...]
Mothers in Yama, Niger, crowd with their children to be admitted to the MSF screening field centre for malnourished children. Photograph: Dan Chung for the Guardian Niger is worst country to be a mother, says report Niger’s current food crisis and high levels of maternal mortality place African nation bottom of Save the Children‘s list [...]
US Admits Killing Innocent Afghan Family in Airstrike The incident did not come to light until the governor in Helmand Province made a public accusation by John Glaser, May 07, 2012 Print This | Share This The U.S. military has claimed responsibility for an airstrike that killed six innocent members of a family in southwestern Afghanistan and pledged a [...]
Afghanistan: Obama’s ‘dumb’ war Mon May 7, 2012 1:9PM GMT Hamid Javadi U.S. President Barack Obama addressing the American public from Bagram Airbase in Afghanistan on May 1 Since taking office as president of the United States, Barack Obama made the war inAfghanistan his own war. He called the occupation of Iraq ”a dumb war”, but in Afghanistan he approved [...]
President Barack Obama greets troops on a surprise visit this month at Bagram Air Field in Afghanistan. America, one scholar says, is “addicted to war.” (Mandel Ngan, Getty-AFP photo / May 1, 2012) Steve ChapmanMay 6, 2012 Every president is a war president Politics protects the garrison state Ninety-six years ago, when President Woodrow Wilson ran for re-election, two notable things [...]
Obama Misleads on Afghanistan, Claims Victory and Promises Withdrawal The war has not only failed, it will continue for another decade by John Glaser, May 05, 2012 Print This | Share This In his weekly address, President Obama promised to withdraw U.S. troops by the end of 2014 and to start wasting money here at home, instead of [...]
Soldiers acting as part of Operation Pranoo Verbena in order to disrupt Taliban operations in Kandahar province, Afghanistan, March 16, 2012. (Photo: MATEUS_27:24&25) Henry A. Giroux | Violence, USA: The Warfare State and the Brutalizing of Everyday Life Wednesday, 02 May 2012 10:03By Henry A Giroux, Truthout | Op-Ed Since 9/11, the war on terror and the campaign for homeland security have increasingly [...]
“We Did Not Choose This War” and Other Hypocrisies By Leah Bolger and David Swanson http://warisacrime.org/content/we-did-not-choose-war-and-other-hypocrisies “We did not choose this war. This war came to us on 9/11. We don’t go looking for a fight. But when we see our homeland violated, when we see our fellow citizens killed, then we [...]
. Britain: Germany Needs to ‘Get Over WW2,’ Fight in More Wars ‘Huge Potential’ for Germany to Fight Massive Wars by Jason Ditz, May 02, 2012 Print This | Share This Speaking today in Berlin, Britain’s Defense Secretary Philip Hammond said he believesGermany has a [...]
US-Afghan Pact Won’t End War or Night Raids by Gareth Porter, May 03, 2012 Print This | Share This The optics surrounding the Barack Obama administration’s “Enduring Strategic Partnership” [.pdf] agreement with Afghanistan and the memorandums of understanding (MOU) accompanying it emphasize transition to Afghan responsibility and an end to U.S. war. [...]
Obama in Afghanistan to Sign Deal to Continue War Through 2024 President Sneaks Into Country to Sign Document, Bypasses Congress by Jason Ditz, May 01, 2012 Print This | Share This Months of “not quite public” Obama Administration efforts to negotiate a still-secret pact to ensure that US troops will [...]
Leaving Afghanistan by Staying By David Swanson http://warisacrime.org/content/leaving-afghanistan-staying Is staying in Afghanistan OK with you as long as we call it leaving? President Obama has signed an agreement with President Karzai to keep a major U.S. military presence in Afghanistan (currently about three times the [...]
Bin Laden: Everyone Is Missing the Big Picture Washington’s Blog May 1, 2012 Obama and Romney Are Both Ignoring the Real Issue with Killing Bin Laden The anniversary of Bin Laden’s death is big news. Obama is bragging about how he whacked Bin Laden, accusing Romney of being too soft to take out [...]
NATO vs. Rogues? By John Feffer Institutions rarely vote themselves out of existence. Not if they still have money in their budgets. Large institutions in particular have an almost genetic propensity to cling to life even after their reasons for being have vanished. That’s why I don’t expect NATO, which will [...]
Aimal Faizi. “This means the text is closed….”What is the opinion of the agreement among regular Afghan citizens? (Photo: Afghan Youth Peace Volunteers) Why “lock” or “close” the future of Afghanistan to 30 million ordinary Afghan citizens? While the world may accept that the U.S. and Afghan governments have some “state” or “noble” considerations [...]
HURSDAY 26, APRIL 2012 Afghanistan, Pakistan and the post 9/11 war economy Dear all, The post 9/11 world has created a vibrant and highly profitable war economy. Countless corporations in the West and beyond saw a unique opportunity to support American designs in the “war on terror”. This has created [...]
Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari has once again expressed his concerns over the U.S. drone strikes in his country’s tribal regions. In a meeting with U.S. Special Envoy for Pakistan and Afghanistan Marc Grossman on Friday, Zardari said Pakistan has always maintained that U.S. drone attacks are highly “counter-productive” in the war against militants since [...]
Taliban reject safe passage agreed at trilateral moot * Spokesman says decision of trilateral forum a US tactic to make jihadis surrender By Imdad Hussain link http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2012%5C04%5C29%5Cstory_29-4-2012_pg7_3 ISLAMABAD: Afghan Taliban on Saturday rejected the trilateral forum agreement in Islamabad to give a safe passage to terrorists willing to talk [...]
The Supposed Legality of Murder By David Swanson http://warisacrime.org/content/supposed-legality-murder War is legal, but pointing out its illegality is not mistaken; it’s irrelevant and un-strategic. That’s the argument I’m hearing from a number of quarters. Chase Madar has a terrific new book on Bradley Manning in which he argues that [...]
Why I Refused to Return to Fight in Afghanistan’s Brutal Occupation The Taliban clearly has broad support from Afghan people. Conscientious objection is a right and obligation in a failed war By Joe Glenton April 27, 2012 “The Guardian” – – Recent attacks in Kabul confirm the occupation is falling to pieces. [...]
Nick Turse, Memory Failure at the Pentagon Posted by Nick Turse at 8:50am, April 24, 2012. Call it a mantra, a litany, or a to-don’t list, but the drip, drip, drip of Afghan disaster and the gross-out acts accompanying it have already resulted in one of those classic fill-you-in paragraphs that reporters hang [...]
Dec. 19, 2001 — Marine Lt. Ronald Reed of Virginia waits inside his fighting position on the perimeter of the bombed-out airport in Kandahar. More than eleven years later, an end to the disaster that is the US war in Afghanistan is nowhere in sight. (Rick Loomis / Los Angeles Times) Drip, Drip, Drip: [...]
Text of AP Story on Afghanistan Agreement Translated into Human By David Swanson http://warisacrime.org/content/text-ap-story-afghanistan-agreement-translated-human Here’s an Associated Press story on an agreement for another decade of U.S. military presence in Afghanistan, an agreement between two governments that do not represent their peoples, a story that was clearly translated from the [...]
Much like what is currently happening in Afghanistan, the Tet Offensive of 1968 served as an exemplar of a war that could not be won [AP] San Pedro, CA - As I first heard about coordinated attacks in the heart of Kabul and three other locations across Afghanistan last Sunday, my thoughts turned immediately to the [...]
These are but a few reports on the chameleon attitudes and thoughts of the unelected PM of Australia, Julia Gillard. At least what she seems to be taking as a jaunt in the Afghan photos has caught up with even this princess of poor ideas and even worse decisions. After shedding a sufficient [...]
Still killed and killing in the lost Afghanistan War By Lindsey German Stop the War Coalition Afghans for Peace say end the war now April 20, 2012 – Has anyone told the media that the NATO forces are losing the war in Afghanistan? The capital city, Kabul, supposedly the safest place in the country was faced [...]
Photo: AFP Pulitzer-Winning Image Source Of Pride, Nightmares For Afghan Photographer Mustafa Sarwar, Abubakar Siddique |From RFE/RL “In the blink of an eye, Tarana‘s surrounding’s were filled with blood. The dead and injured bodies of her relatives surrounded her,” Massoud Hossaini recalls. Tarana stands erect amid the dead and injured at her feet, her blood-stained hands opened [...]
Afghan Screams Aren’t Heard by Kathy Kelly and Hakim http://warisacrime.org/content/afghan-screams-aren%E2%80%99t-heard Last weekend, in Kabul, Afghan Peace Volunteer friends huddled in the back room of their simple home. With a digital camera, glimpses and sounds of their experiences were captured, as warfare erupted three blocks away. Two Afghan youth taking refuge together with the Afghan [...]
Torture on Trial Legal and Humane Frameworks for Opposing Torture by: David Swanson Published in the May / June 2012 Humanist http://thehumanist.org/may-june-2012/torture-on-trial-legal-and-humane-frameworks-for-opposing-torture/ Cases come in by the thousands from all over the world. A man was beaten and whipped. A woman was beaten and raped. A boy was hooded with three empty sand [...]
The recent decision by the Taliban and one of its allies to withdraw from peace talks with Washington underlines the train wreck the U.S. is headed for in Afghanistan. Indeed, for an administration touted as sophisticated and intelligent, virtually every decision the White House has made vis-à-vis Afghanistan has been a disaster. On Mar. 15 [...]
