Another night-time raid on a housing compound in Afghanistan. Another bunch of innocent Afghans killed. Another round of lies by the US-led forces of the so-called International Security Assistance Force (ISAF). Only this time, among the dead are two pregnant mothers and a teenage girl. And once again the US media remain mute, accepting the official story, which was of ISAF forces responding to an attack which in reality appears never to have happened.
March 14, 2010 | Filed under
World |
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Tom Hayden wants peace, but he’s sincerely mistaken about how to get it. He claims that Wednesday’s unsuccessful vote to end the war in Afghanistan makes ending the war less likely, and that the way to end the war is to pass a bill that would then have to pass the Senate and the President, a bill requiring an exit strategy, any exit strategy — it could be “redeployment” to Iran in 2038 or anything else.
March 13, 2010 | Filed under
Commentary |
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The stated goal of the US-led War in Afghanistan, according to the Obama Administration, is to defeat the Taliban and establish a stable democratic government over the entire country. Critical to that goal is establishing a professional Afghan army and police force that is not corrupt, and that has the respect of the Afghan people. But reports out of Canada suggest that far from creating such a military and police force, the so-called International Security and Assistance Force (ISAF) is turning a blind eye to the thuggish criminality of those organizations, both to avoid growing opposition in ISAF member countries, and to avoid offending those organizations in Afghanistan.
March 7, 2010 | Filed under
Commentary |
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Most Americans’ image of Congressman Charles Nesbitt Wilson is based upon the book and/or movie, CHARLIE WILSON’S WAR. According to both of these sources, when Congressman Wilson first became involved in crafting U.S. policy towards Afghanistan, he was living on $700 a week. The documentary evidence paints a very different picture.
You had to love the headline the Philadelphia Inquirer put on the jump page of columnist Trudy Rubin’s Sunday commentary about word that the Obama administration is hoping to talk with at least some mid-level Taliban leaders about giving up the fight and “coming over” to the “government” side. “Relax–No deal with Taliban is Imminent,” the headline read. “I suggest everyone take a deep breath,” Rubin wrote. “The US position toward talks with the Taliban has shifted somewhat, but no deal with top Taliban leaders is imminent, or even likely.”
January 31, 2010 | Filed under
Commentary |
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On Friday January 15, 2010, the Pentagon responded to a FOIA request submitted by the ACLU last April, and released (PDF) the first ever list of 645 prisoners held, as of September 22, 2009, in the US prison at Bagram airbase in Afghanistan (the Bagram Theater Internment Facility), which has been in operation for eight years.
January 27, 2010 | Filed under
Law |
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Two reports coming out of Afghanistan illustrate the depth of hypocrisy and subterfuge characterizing the US/NATO intervention in that country. One could cite a myriad of such examples, so immoral and wrong is the US war there. In the first report, a 2009 human rights assessment prepared by Canada’s Foreign Affairs Department, obtained by The Canadian Press and reported at CBC News, revealed a skyrocketing suicide rate among Afghan women:
January 24, 2010 | Filed under
Torture |
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After years of stonewalling, the U.S. Defense Department has released the names of people imprisoned at the notorious Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan.
Made available in response to an American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit, the list contains the names of 645 prisoners who were detained at Bagram as of September [...]
January 22, 2010 | Filed under
World |
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Afghanistan is in dire need of NATO military instructors, the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee has warned.
Senator Carl Levin, who visited Afghanistan earlier this week, said the training was crucial in the strategy to help Afghans take the lead in securing their own nation.
But as Al Jazeera’s Hashem Ahelbarra reports from a NATO [...]
January 15, 2010 | Filed under
TPRvideo |
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Under the stewardship of neoconservative Fred Hiatt, the editorial and op-ed pages of The Washington Post have steadily moved to the right; the paper’s key writers — Charles Krauthammer, David Broder, Richard Cohen, Kathleen Parker, and others — have marched along in lockstep. They have supported the use of military force in Iraq and Afghanistan; offered apologies for the CIA crimes of torture and abuse, extraordinary renditions, and secret prisons; and criticized efforts by the Obama Administration to reverse these policies and to rely on multilateral diplomacy and arms control and disarmament to resolve outstanding problems.
January 15, 2010 | Filed under
Commentary |
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