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February 11, 2010 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
CounterPunch: Perhaps, there was once a time when most westerners could pretend that the US-led onslaught against the Afghan people was a good thing. Perhaps they convinced themselves that because the government of that country had allowed Osama Bin Laden to live in the mountains there that there was reason enough to attack his neighbors and destroy what remained of their nation. Full news...
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February 10, 2010 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
Danger Room: That’s according to Colonel Wayne Shanks, a spokesman for the U.S. military effort there, and dogged researcher Nick Turse. About 400 belong to NATO and American forces; the rest are in the hands of the Afghan National Army. The number will almost certainly grow, as more NATO troops execute top commander General Stanley McChrystal’s dictum to live among the local population. Full news...
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February 9, 2010 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
Le Monde diplomatique: A worrying two-thirds of the Pentagon’s personnel in Afghanistan are private military contractors, unaccountable to military law or ethics, swaggeringly overbearing, and not in any hurry to help improve the poor security situation that assures their firms’ current and future profits. The Central Intelligence Agency hired staff from a private military company called Blackwater in 2004 as part of a secret programme to track down and assassinate al-Qaida leaders, according to the New York Times of 19 August 2009. Full news...
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February 8, 2010 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
The Hill Times: More than 6,000 Canadian Forces members and discharged veterans who are receiving physical or psychiatric disability benefits from Veterans Affairs Canada have either served in Afghanistan or have a disability that has been related to their service in Afghanistan, the department says. The majority of the soldiers receiving benefits are likely suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder or war-related psychiatric conditions, according to global figures the department and the Canadian Forces provided The Hill Times. Full news...
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February 7, 2010 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
Veterans Today: Open today’s newspaper and get a map of the battle zones in Afghanistan and Pakistan. You say they aren’t there? Open today’s newspaper and find out how many troops our enemies have, who their leaders are. Can’t find that either? Look in the paper to find out why we are fighting at all. Not there too? This isn’t half of it, we aren’t just being kept in the dark. It goes much further. Lets look at some things that just don’t add up. Full news...
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January 31, 2010 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
New Statesman: Malalai Joya: "We Afghans know well that the US and its allies occupied Afghanistan for their own strategic, economic and regional interests and don't care about the wishes of our people. So the "liberation" of Afghan women was never part of the real agenda. It is just a lie. The so-called freedom given by the US to Afghanistan is enjoyed mainly by the warlords and drug lords, who are free to commit their crimes and do their drug trafficking." Full news...
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January 30, 2010 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
Asia Times: One quiet, wintry night last year in the eastern Afghan town of Khost, a young government employee named Ismatullah simply vanished. He had last been seen in the town's bazaar with a group of friends. Family members scoured Khost's dust-doused streets for days. Village elders contacted Taliban commanders in the area who were wont to kidnap government workers, but they had never heard of the young man. Even the governor got involved, ordering his police to round up nettlesome criminal gangs that sometimes preyed on young bazaar-goers for ransom. Full news...
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January 29, 2010 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
The Guardian: After almost nine years of international military operations, billions of dollars in aid and thousands of Afghan and international lives, what Afghanistan needed was a new vision to deal with the complex set of problems. Instead, world leaders pledged £87m to woo the Taliban back into government. Bravo, President Karzai! Bravo, international leaders! Full news...
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January 28, 2010 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
Sky News Online: Young soldiers returning from Afghanistan are up to three times more likely to kill themselves than civilians of the same age, according to the Mental Health Foundation. Suicide, crime and alcohol problems are of particular risk to the under 24s, the charity says, and more needs to be done to look after the mental health of troops who have served in wars. The Mental Health Foundation believes that, while money matters, it is important to raise awareness of what help people need. Full news...
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January 27, 2010 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
The Huffington Post: One thing that remains consistent over the last 30 years in observing America's participation in Afghanistan is that mistakes and errors of judgment, no matter how egregious or self-defeating, never seem to get corrected. In fact, in its effort to rationalize a growing culture of war-making from Vietnam to Afghanistan, America has come around to embracing the insanity of the fictional Colonel Kurtz. Full news...
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January 27, 2010 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
AFP: Nearly 80 percent of Germans oppose Berlin’s plans to hike the number of troops in Afghanistan, according to a poll released Wednesday on the eve of a major international conference. Four out of five Germans said they disagreed with a stronger military role for Berlin in Afghanistan, the survey by the independent polling institute Forsa indicated. Full news...
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January 22, 2010 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
McClatchy Newspapers: Although the FBI has acknowledged it improperly obtained thousands of Americans' phone records for years, the Obama administration continues to assert that the bureau can obtain them without any formal legal process or court oversight. The FBI revealed this stance in a newly released report, troubling critics who'd hoped the bureau had been chastened enough by its own abuses to drop such a position. Full news...
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January 22, 2010 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
The Jerusalem Post: While Israeli soldiers can't fight in the war in Afghanistan, Israeli drones can. Starting next week, five NATO member countries will be operating unmanned aerial vehicles produced in the Jewish state in anti-Taliban operations in the Central Asian country. Next week, officials from the German military will arrive to take delivery of an undisclosed number of Heron UAVs, made by Israel Aerospace Industries. Full news...
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January 22, 2010 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
Le Monde Diplomatique: In northern Afghanistan, far away from the Taliban’s heartland, freedom remains elusive for most women. Forced marriages of young girls are still common and sex attacks are on the rise. Many say life has deteriorated after the US-led invasion because the occupation ushered in a new era of lawlessness. At the offices of the Afghanistan Human Rights Organisation in Sheberghan, Jowzjan province, women from throughout the region arrive with tales of misery and horror. Full news...
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January 20, 2010 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
t r u t h o u t: 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. "Self-immolation is being used by increasing numbers of Afghan women to escape their dire circumstances ...." Full news...
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January 17, 2010 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
The Boston Globe: While the White House has paid lip service to the importance of good governance in Afghanistan, the reality is that co-opting violent warlords is at the heart of a plan that will likely result in further instability. One of the warlords who may soon star in the new US efforts to rebrand fundamentalists as potential government partners is Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, a brutal Afghan insurgent commander... Full news...
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January 16, 2010 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
AFP: Suicides in the US Army rose to a new record in 2009, with 160 soldiers taking their lives, the military said Friday, calling it a "painful year.""There's no question that 2009 was a painful year for the army when it came to suicides," said Colonel Christopher Philbrick, deputy director of an army suicide prevention task force. Full news...
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January 13, 2010 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
Reuters: U.S. President Barack Obama plans to ask Congress for $33 billion in emergency war funding for a major U.S. troop buildup in Afghanistan this year... The money, mainly for the deployment of 30,000 additional troops to Afghanistan and other war costs in the current 2010 fiscal year, would come on top of Obama's expected request to increase the Pentagon's overall budget in fiscal 2011 to a record $708 billion... Full news...
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January 13, 2010 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
Aljazeera: The number of civilians killed in war-related violence in Afghanistan touched 2,412 last year, the highest number since the 2001 US-led invasion, the UN has said. A report by the UN mission for Afghanistan pointed to the "intensification and spread of the armed conflict" in what was also the deadliest year for foreign forces, with 520 troops killed. Full news...
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January 12, 2010 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
PAN: Ten people were killed and 25 others wounded as NATO-led soldiers opened fire on residents protesting civilian deaths and desecration of the Holy Quran in southern Helmand province on Tuesday. Dwellers of the restive Garmser district said International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) soldiers raided the house of a tribal elder, killing three of his family members and torching copies of Quran in a local mosque. Full news...
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January 11, 2010 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
Fox News: Between 2004 and 2008, USAID showered more than $330 million on an obscure United Nations agency known as UNOPS to carry out development aid projects in Afghanistan. What happened next wasn’t pretty. Among other things, USAID apparently overlooked a growing stack of U.N. audits and investigations that pointed to fraud, mismanagement and lack of internal financial controls by UNOPS in Afghanistan... Full news...
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January 10, 2010 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
The New York Times: In Kabul, even a traffic jam can provoke a comment on this Islamic nation's dismal state, which most people here believe is at its bleakest since the U.S. invaded to topple the Taliban in 2001. It's a striking sentiment when you consider it comes after eight years of international intervention, $60 billion in foreign aid and the lives of thousands of foreign troops and Afghan civilians. Full news...
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January 10, 2010 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
BBC NEWS: Osama Bin Laden died eight years ago during the battle for Tora Bora in Afghanistan, either from a US bomb or from a serious kidney disease. Or so the conspiracy theory goes. The theory that has developed on the web since 9/11 is that US intelligence services are manufacturing the Bin Laden statements to create an evil bogeyman, to justify the so-called war on terror in Afghanistan, Iraq and back at home. Full news...
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January 9, 2010 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
BBC: The UK paid $2m (£1.3m) for the services of an Afghan warlord in an operation against Osama Bin Laden in 2001, it has been alleged. BBC Two's Conspiracy Files heard claims from a US special forces commander that both the Americans and British paid substantial sums to Afghan warlords. Dalton Fury added that the UK-backed warlord, Haji Zaman Gamsurek, went on to agree a ceasefire with al-Qaeda. Full news...
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January 9, 2010 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
Canwest News Service: It costs taxpayers about $525,000 a year to keep one Canadian soldier in Afghanistan, according to the simplest calculation possible, which is to divide the approximately $1.5-billion cost of the mission for the 2009/2010 fiscal year by the 2,850 troops who are part of it. These figures does not take into account soldiers' salaries and benefits or the long-term health-care costs associated with service in South Asia. Full news...
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January 7, 2010 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
AP: Thousands of Afghans shouting “Death to America!” protested the killings of children Thursday, the latest in a string of controversial cases in which international forces have been blamed for civilian deaths. There are fears the problem could get worse with 37,000 U.S. and NATO reinforcements already starting to stream into the country as part of a military buildup. Full news...
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January 6, 2010 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
PAN: The outgoing year was the deadliest year for Afghan children since the ouster of the Taliban regime in late 2001, a human rights watchdog said here on Wednesday. More than 1,050 children under 18 years of age were killed in suicide attacks, air strikes, improvised explosive device blasts and crossfire between warring parties in 2009, the organisation said. Full news...
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January 4, 2010 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
The Wall Street Journal: The suicide bomber who killed seven Central Intelligence Agency employees and contractors and a Jordanian intelligence officer was a double agent the CIA had recruited to provide intelligence on senior al Qaeda leadership, according to current and former U.S. officials and an Afghan security official. The officials said the bomber was a Jordanian doctor likely affiliated and working with al Qaeda. Full news...
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January 1, 2010 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
The Canadian Press: A preliminary United Nations investigation has found that eight students were among 10 Afghan civilians killed in Kunar province on Sunday. A statement Thursday by Kai Eide, special UN representative, says the deaths occurred during a raid by Afghan and international military forces in the province's Narang district. "Based on our initial investigation, eight of those killed were students enrolled in local schools," Eide said. Full news...
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December 31, 2009 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
ZNet: Barack Obama is the leader of a contemporary Oceania. In two speeches at the close of the decade, the Nobel Peace Prize winner affirmed that peace was no longer peace, but rather a permanent war that "extends well beyond Afghanistan and Pakistan" to "disorderly regions and diffuse enemies". He called this "global security" and invited our gratitude. To the people of Afghanistan, which America has invaded and occupied, he said wittily: "We have no interest in occupying your country." Full news...
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