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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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. [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
AfPak: Mutiny on the Bounty By Eric Walberg – CairoKabul was cast into chaos Sunday as the Taliban began their spring offensive with attacks on US, British, German and Russian embassies, NATO headquarters, Camp Eggers, a hotel, President Karzai’s palace compound and parliament. “These are coordinated attacks that went just [...]
America’s Lost War by Stephen Lendman America’s Afghan war is lost and illegal. The Bush administration got no Security Council authorization or congressional declaration of war. International law expert Francis Boyle said Congress passed a War Powers Resolution Authorization. Doing so gave Bush “blank check” power “to use [...]
Afghan police on patrol after the Taliban‘s co-ordinated assault in Kabul, Nangarhar, Logar and Paktia provinces. Photograph: Pajhwok Afghan News/Demotix/Corbis Afghanistan: an illusion exposed Taliban attacks on Kabul are further proof that the west’s vision for Afghanistan was a fantasy link to article http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/apr/16/afghanistan-western-naivety-kabul-attacks For months after the allied invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, there were no Taliban [...]
Afghan police were left to pick up the pieces after a devastating series of Taliban attacks across the country [AFP] Doha, Qatar - In one of the first official US reactions to the attacks against Kabul and cities across eastern Afghanistan last weekend, Ryan C Crocker, US ambassador to Afghanistan, said: “The Taliban are really good [...]
We thank you for your love and your hands and feet, in organizing for the upcoming Chicago protests! Protesting NATO in Chicago will be too Late for Afghanistan by Afghan Youth Peace Volunteers Dear friends of ordinary 99 percent Afghans, In these killing days, we in Afghanistan do not expect the interests of people to triumph [...]
How NATO Dehumanizes Us Categories:Afghanistan http://vcnv.org/how-nato-dehumanizes-us by Jerica Arents When we finally stepped off the helicopter and greeted the mountains of Bamiyan, Afghanistan, I was exhausted. A full day and a half after our departure, my eyelids were heavy and I was hoping, desperately, for a cup of warm, life-giving [...]
A woman walks past campaign posters of candidates in the Afghan parliamentary elections. The vote in 2010 was marred by accusations of widespread fraud. Photograph: Rahmat Gul/AP Leading Afghans cast doubt on election schedule Talk in Kabul that presidential vote due in 2014 could be delayed or brought forward by a year, threatening constitutional crisis [...]
A partnership between Washington and Kabul is doomed to fail, the authors write. | AP Photo Close Afghanistan shooting shows U.S. should stop treading water By MALOU INNOCENT and ROBERT NAIMAN | 3/12/12 9:22 PM EDT The rogue U.S. soldier’s massacre Sunday of 16 Afghan villagers — nine of them children — follows the violent anti-American [...]
A Tale of Two Tales What Real World?By Fred Reed March 16, 2012 “Information Clearing House” —As I listen to American fury against uncoöperative Afghans, to Congress furiously denouncing Pakistan for anemic aid in conducting the current wars, I sometimes wonder whether the US is playing with a full deck. The [...]
Afghanistan‘s President Karzai prays during a meeting with relatives of victims of the Kandahar massacre. Photograph: Photo Corbis President Karzai casts doubts on US version of Afghan village massacre President says US has not co-operated with his investigations and he questions whether there was only one attacker The President of Afghanistan warned he was frustrated over [...]
Hamid Karzai told visiting Leon Panetta that all foreign soldiers should be pulled out of Afghanistan‘s villages. Photograph: Michael Reynolds/EPA The Taliban have suspended talks with the US, saying in a statement that they were presented with unacceptable demands. The move leaves the west’s political strategy for Afghanistan in tatters days after a US soldier’s massacre of 16 civilians [...]
Afghan Massacre: Peace Groups Call for U.S. Withdrawal After Army Sergeant Kills 16 Afghan Civilians Categories:Afghanistan AMY GOODMAN: A U.S. Army sergeant is in custody after he went on a shooting spree in southern Afghanistan, killing 16 Afghan civilians, nine of them children. The massacre took place Saturday night in [...]
Kandahar ‘killing-spree’ militarism: A call for U.S. and Afghan citizens to question the U.S./Afghan Strategic Partnership Agreement By davidswanson - Posted on 13 March 2012 By the Afghan Youth Peace Volunteers The Afghan Youth Peace Volunteers question the presumption that the U.S. military strategy in Afghanistan is necessary for American or Afghan peace. Tragedies [...]
The recent shooting spree from an American soldier has fomented anger amongst Afghans [GALLO/GETTY] Kabul, Afghanistan - In the early morning hours of Sunday, a heavily-armed US soldier in the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) left a military base in the Panjawi district of Kandahar province and opened fire on three houses in southern Afghanistan. The [...]
‘It is long past time for the United States’ and NATO to withdraw from Afghanistan, writes Falk [Reuters] While it may sound good just when do you decide that a war has become pathological? War is a crime from start to finish there is no cross over point to distinguish what a war means at [...]
Afghan villagers on Monday prepare to remove the victims of the shooting Photograph: Jangir/AFP/Getty Images Taliban militants opened fire on senior officials from the Afghan government and military at a memorial service for 16 civilians thought to have been shot dead in their homes by a US soldier. The service, held in one of the villages where [...]
Burning Babies Afghanistan‘s Haditha: An Atrocity to End the War By Robert Dreyfuss Anar Gul gestures to the body of her grandchild, who was allegedly killed by a US service member in Panjwai, a Kandahar province south of Kabul, Afghanistan, Sunday, March 11, 2012. (AP Photo/Allauddin Khan) March 122, 2012 “ The Nation” – Iraq had its Haditha. Now, [...]
Some of the bodies of the victims were badly burned, but it remains unclear whether the fire in this Kandahar home was set deliberately or caused by the shooting itself [AFP] In Australia after a few words of condolence and the very insincere sounding efforts of Gillard the unelected PM it is full speed ahead to complete [...]
Afghan President Hamid Karzai looks on during a news conference in Kabul, Afghanistan, Tuesday, March 6, 2012. (Credit: AP Photo/Anja Niedringhaus) Building a “Mature” Democracy in Afghanistan by Tom Engelhardt How primitive the Afghans are! A New York Times account of faltering negotiations over a possible “strategic partnership” agreement to leave U.S. troops on bases in that country for years [...]
US General John Allen, left, called the prison handover ’a step forward in our strategic partnership negotiations’ [AFP] Afghanistan and US sign prison transfer deal US military to hand over Parwan prison, its main detention facility in the country, to Afghan control within six months. The US military has signed a last-minute agreement to transfer its [...]
Afghans are not just protesting burned books, but the fact that they were burned by a foreign army [Reuters] New York, NY - Book burning seems to be making history once again. The inadvertent and partial incineration of some Qurans by a US-Afghan labour detail at Bagram ignited a web of action, from Kabul to the [...]
AFP photo Five years ago, deep in the south west of Germany, I was taken to see American troops prepare for Afghanistan. Based in a massive training area which stretched for miles, a long way from the nearest towns, makeshift villages were built, native speakers of Afghanistan’s two main languages [Dari and Pashto] were imported [...]
Afghans Turn On Occupiers By Eric S. Margolis March 03, 2012 “Information Clearing House” — Shock, incomprehension, fury. Americans are feeling these raw emotions as news keeps coming in of more attacks by Afghan government soldiers and officials on US and NATO troops. Six US troops were killed last week as a [...]
Engelhardt and Turse, The End in Afghanistan? Posted by Tom Engelhardt and Nick Turse at 8:21am,February 28, 2012. Blown Away How the U.S. Fanned the Flames in Afghanistan By Tom Engelhardt and Nick Turse Is it all over but the (anti-American) shouting — and the killing? Are the exits finally coming into view? Sometimes, in a moment, [...]
Afghan protesters shout anti-U.S. slogans during a demonstration in Kunduz province February 25, 2012.Protesters in Kabul interviewed on the road and in front of Parliament said that this was not the first time that Americans had violated Afghan cultural and religious traditions and that an apology was not enough. The Causes of the [...]
Protesters burn an effigy of President Barack Obama during an anti-US rally in Peshawar, Afghanistan. Photograph: Fayaz Aziz/REUTERS Twelve people were killed on Friday in the bloodiest day yet in protests that have raged across Afghanistan over the desecration of copies of the Muslim holy book at a Nato military base with riot police and soldiers [...]
Report: Half a Million Afghans Flee Fighting but Head to Starvation and Death ‘Fleeing war, finding misery’ documents harsh effects continued fighting brings to Afghan families – Common Dreams staff Fighting in Afghanistan has left half a million Afghans displaced and on the brink of starvation or death, according to a new report [...]
A US army position on the outskirts of the village of Jellawar in the Arghandab valley comes under Taliban attack. Photograph: Patrick Baz/AFP/Getty Images This week Afghan guerrillas carried out yet another raid on the Kandahar airbase. General John Allen, the American commander of the Nato-led International Security Assistance Force (Isaf), issued an odd statement: “Mullah Omar [...]
Eide (C) served as UN envoy during a disputed election that threatened Afghanististan’s fragile system [Getty] While it is hard to say that attempts to “find” strategies and solutions are all the same in Afghanistan, that conclusion is at least becoming a grave concern. First the idea that if you look you will find of [...]
Afghan government accuses US of torture and false imprisonment By James Cogan 10 January 2012 The crisis besetting the US/NATO occupation of Afghanistan has been deepened over recent days. Its own puppet government, headed by President Hamid Karzai, has publicly accused the American military of torture and arbitrary detention at the [...]
Gul Rahman Qazi , center, head of an Afghan investigative commission speaks during a media conference in Kabul, Afghanistan, Saturday, Jan. 7, 2012. Afghan President Karzai had charged the commission with investigating the detention of some hundreds of suspected militants and the investigative commission has accused the U.S. military of abusing detainees at its largest [...]
Obama’s ‘Realistic Vision’: Less Ground Troops and More Warplanes Plan Would Cut Tens of Thousands of Ground Troops by Jason Ditz, January 04, 2012 | Print This | Share This | Antiwar Forum The Obama Administration plans on unveiling what officials are calling a “more realistic” vision of the future [...]
Bagram airbase was used by the US to detain its ‘high-value’ targets during the ‘war on terror’ and is still Afghanistan’s main military prison. Photograph: Dar Yasin/AP Hamid Karzai, furious at being sidelined from Afghan peace talks, has thrown his government into yet another dramatic confrontation with the international community by demanding the US hand [...]
Baba and grandson. (Photo: Kathy kelly) By Kathy Kelly and the Afghan Youth Peace Volunteers – KabulBibi Sadia and her husband Baba share a humble home with their son, his wife and their two little children. An Afghan human rights advocate suggested that we listen to Bibi’s stories and learn more about how a [...]
| Print This | Share This | Antiwar Forum Yesterday’s suicide bombing attack on a NATO convoy killed at least 12 Americans, but they weren’t US soldiers. Instead, at least eight were members of the massive force of US government contractors fighting alongside the military in the occupation effort. The number of contractors working for the US military [...]
An Afghan girl who was tortured for months after refusing prostitution lies on a hospital bed in Kabul Dec. 31. (Reuters/Omar Sobhani) By Hamid Shalizi KABUL (Reuters) — A 15-year-old Afghan girl was brutally tortured, beaten and locked in a toilet by her husband’s family for months after she refused to become a prostitute, officials [...]
Afghanistan to Disband Irregular Police Force Set Up Under NATO Tuesday, December 27, 2011 By MATTHEW ROSENBERG and ALISSA J. RUBIN, The New York Times KABUL, Afghanistan — President Hamid Karzai has taken steps to disband a little-known, irregular police force financed by the American military with members in at least [...]
Afghan Refugee Strategy A ‘Big Mistake’: UNHCR KABUL — The head of the UN refugee program in Afghanistan on Tuesday described its strategy in the war-wracked country since 2002 as the “biggest mistake UNHCR ever made”. Afghans line up to receive winter supplies at a UNHCR distribution centre for needy refugees on [...]
Pool photo by Pablo Martinez Monsivais U.S. to ensure Afghans are ready to take over: Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, left, talks with U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan Ryan Crocker, right, and Marine Gen. John Allen in Kabul on Dec. 13. Enlarge Pool photo by Pablo Martinez Monsivais U.S. to ensure Afghans are ready to take over: [...]
