U.S. Army Soldiers from Alpha Company, 1st Battalion, 5th Infantry Regiment, 1st Brigade, 25th Infantry Division medically extract teammates to safety during exercise Talisman Sabre at Shoalwater Bay Training Area, Australia, June 28, 2007. (Photo: Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Sandra M. Palumbo / US Navy)“Kings had always been involving and impoverishing their peoples in [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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. [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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-a-vis Afghanistan, has been a disaster. On Mar. [...]
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 [...]
. Stop Obama’s Drone War in Pakistan by Matthew Rothschild The Pakistani government and its opposition parties have just come together in a rare show of unity to demand that the United States cease all drone attacks inside their country.As well they should The United States hasn’t declared war on Pakistan. The U.S. has no [...]
Pakistani Muslim women celebrating Eid al-Adhi in Lahore. Photograph: Arif Ali/AFP/Getty Images New wave of well-off Pakistani women drawn to conservative Islam Wealthy, educated women are increasingly embracing the trend for religious inquiry and observance Jason Burke in Lahore guardian.co.uk, Monday 9 April 2012 19.06 BST Article history All the women working in the information technology division of the Bank [...]
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 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 [...]
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 [...]
‘Afghanistan is better off without NATO’ – minister Get short URL link to video at RT http://rt.com/news/afghanistan-opium-nato-security-459/ email story to a friend print version Published: 13 March, 2012, 18:02 US troops from the Combined Task Force 1-67 under Afghanistan’s International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) patrol in Arghandab district in southern Afghanistan, the former stronghold of Taliban [...]
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 [...]
‘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 [...]
Lies & Distortions From the Pentagon’s Afghanistan Press Conference John Glaser, February 28, 2012 Print This | Share This | Comment | Antiwar Forum George Little, Pentagon Press Secretary and Captain John Kirby, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Media Operations spoke to reporters yesterday about the ruckus unleashed in Afghanistan after the U.S. military burned Muslim holy books. Massive [...]
In a way the following article deals with a lot of matters that concern not just the US. The central theme is expressed as an “image problem”. Unfortunately the US and other lappdog toadies like Australia share the same problem. The real question is whether it can be so simply classified as [...]
From the very first time news of this got out in the form that it did, it was extremely obvious that this would be an extremely major issue. The so called apology from the US military commander apart from nearly [...]
Current negotiations are excluding Afghans: Is it time for an Afghan national referendum? http://warisacrime.org/content/current-negotiations-are-excluding-afghans-it-time-afghan-national-referendum By the Afghan Youth Peace Volunteers The people of the world are questioning the lazy and fearful presumption that a few human beings are better than the vast majority; why should the 1% unjustly hoard unequal Wealth, Power [...]
U.S. Paying Millions in Cash to Families of ‘Collateral Damage’ by John Glaser, January 23, 2012 link to article http://news.antiwar.com/2012/01/23/u-s-paying-millions-in-cash-to-families-of-collateral-damage/ | Print This | Share This | Antiwar Forum The Pentagon has a practice called “condolence payments.” This is when U.S. commanders pay surviving family members thousands of dollars for every civilian they’ve killed. After a [...]
Officials: French Troops Killed Over US Marines Urine Video Karzai Downplayed ‘Isolated’ Killing, But Is Anti-NATO Sentiment Worsening? by Jason Ditz, January 22, 2012 | Print This | Share This | Antiwar Forum The killing of four French soldiers and wounding of 12 others last week by an Afghan soldier has [...]
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 [...]
A Fitting Symbol of the American Empire by Sheldon Richman, January 20, 2012 The image of four U.S. marines urinating on the corpses of Afghan fighters is a fitting symbol of American intervention in Central Asia and the Middle East. That picture will live forever in the memories [...]
Scarcely a word is heard about foreign affairs amid US election talk, despite the many fires around the world that the US military is either stoking or trying to douse — depending on your point of view. Other than Republican contender Ron Paul — not a serious candidate for the mainstream [...]
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 [...]
Ex-Taliban militants surrender under a US-backed Afghan amnesty in Herat. Peace moves with the Taliban appear to have stalled over the transfer of Guantánamo prisoners. Photograph: Jalil Rezayee/EPA You may wonder just how obvious it has become that Guantanamo is set to be the place where those against the idea of endless war to support [...]
Two British soldiers have been arrested on allegations of child abuse, news that will harm the counterinsurgency campaign in Afghanistan. Photograph: Marco Di Lauro/Getty Images Military police have launched an investigation into claims that British soldiers abused two children during their tour of duty in Afghanistan. The Ministry of Defence confirmed an inquiry had begun into two [...]
Analysts: US , Pakistan collaborating again on drone strikes BY TOM HUSSAIN MCCLATCHY NEWSPAPERS ISLAMABAD – Two apparent U.S. drone attacks last week on militant targets in Pakistani tribal areas bordering Afghanistan very likely signal the resumption of joint counterintelligence operations by the CIA and Pakistan’s military spy agency, security analysts here [...]
Photo: Joint Task Force Guantanamo Unexpected Road Block to Afghanistan Peace: Gitmo By Spencer Ackerman Email Author Photo: Joint Task Force Guantanamo Negotiating a peace deal with the Taliban after 10 years of war in Afghanistan is hard enough. But the stalemated politics of the Guantanamo Bay detention facility risk effectively killing the negotiations before they [...]
WASHINGTON (Reuters) — The US Marines have identified the unit whose forces are suspected of being behind a video appearing to show them urinating on the bodies of dead Taliban in Afghanistan, a Marineofficer told Reuters on Thursday.The officer, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the Marines in question were believed to be from the [...]
New National Intelligence Estimate on Afghanistan: War Still a Stalemate Classified Data Refutes Pentagon Claims War Is Going Well by Jason Ditz, January 11, 2012 | Print This | Share This | Antiwar Forum The Obama Administration’s repeated claims that the occupation of Afghanistan is going swimmingly and that major progress [...]
Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid said the Taliban would be opening a political office in Qatar [EPA] New York, New York - Once upon a time they favoured Dubai – their smuggling Mecca. Now the Taliban go-to destination of choice will be Doha. So the Taliban will open a political office in Qatar to be engaged in negotiations [...]
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 [...]
Mullah Omar Confirms US Peace Talks Karzai Endorses Talks, But Reportedly Annoyed by Secondary Role by Jason Ditz, January 04, 2012 | Print This | Share This | Antiwar Forum Over the past 10 years of NATO’s occupation of Afghanistan, rumors of Taliban peace talks have come and [...]
Doha in Qatar: the Taliban say they have reached an agreement with the Qatari government and other ‘relevant parties’ about the opening of an office but did not say when it would happen. Photograph: Alan Copson/Getty Images The Taliban have said they are prepared to open a political office inQatar for the purpose of negotiations “with the international [...]
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 [...]
Senator Saxby Chambliss, who says the detainees would ‘likely continue to pose a threat to the United States’. Photograph: Tami Chappell/Reuters The Obama administration is considering transferring to Afghan custody a senior Taliban official suspected of major human rights abuses as part of a remote bid to improve the prospects of a peace deal in Afghanistan, Reuters has learned. The [...]
Mullah Omar no more FBI’s most wanted By: thenation monitoring | December 28, 2011 | 7 Comments The United States Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has removed the name of Afghan Taliban supreme commander Mullah Muhammad Omar from its list of “most wanted terrorists”, reported a private news channel. However, the names of Ayman Al Zawahiri and [...]
