"Climate Of Fear": Human Rights Watch has issued a report describing the climate of fear that now rules Afghanistan, and how the Warlords are keeping the peace in the same manner as the Taliban - through fear and extortion. It also talks about the damage against women's education in Afghanistan by the new rise in fundamentalism.
Children Without Rights: Remember how Guantanamo Bay was said to house "the worst of the worst"? Apparently that includes children ages 13-15. And they're being interrogated. And child prisoners are far more likely to commit suicide. And the list goes on...
School's Out: In the past two months in Afghanistan, 7 different schools in Kandahar province alone have been burned to the ground by armed gangs, assumed to be Taliban, who disapprove of a western-style school system.
Whoops, Sorry!: The US government has admitted that it recently killed 11 civilians in an Afghan border town and wounded one, although locals put the toll much higher. The amazing thing was that it actually was reported on; so little news comes out of Afghanistan these days.
Welcome Back, Taliban!: A year after the Taliban's fall, they have become more brazen, with one of their worst human rights violators even giving interviews. They've actually been having some military successes in their recent campaigns. Meanwhile, Afghans ask where the aid went.
Remember Afghanistan?: A blogger summarizes the current situation in Afghanistan with a short collection of article links.
Wrongful Death Lawsuit: The mother of one of the four Canadian soldiers killed by a US pilot in Afghanistan (who was hopped up on military-issue amphetamines) has filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the United States government. Plus: Soldiers needing to be hopped up
for longer, plus drugged to be stronger and more alert?
More Tribal Belt Problems: In Pakistan's western tribal belt, al-Qaeda members have been roaming freely, and there have been a number of killings of people who gave US forces information on their whereabouts. Meanwhile, the US cannot attack in any significant numbers for fear of conflict with Pakistan.
Which Way Did He Go, George?: As
Saddam leaves
Osama in the dust, the Niagara Falls Reporter asks: Whatever happened to Osama Bin Laden ("Remember him?").
Ecological Disaster: One of the seldom explored sides of war is its disastrous effect on the environment. Well, a UN environmental programme (UNEP) survey has found that two decades of war has damaged Afghanistan so badly that its reconstruction is now compromised.
Redefining "Liberated": On Wednesday, an Afghan supreme court justice outlawed cable television, saying it was against Islam. But, without Fox News, how will they learn how liberated the US has made the Afghan people?
War On Terror Hits A Snag: The Christian Science Monitor reports on an Al-Qaeda training camp just far enough inside the border of Pakistan that US troops can't touch it. Plus: Al-Qaeda's
simple feint against US technological monitoring, at Tora Bora.
Chasing Phantoms: A LA Times writer follows a Special Forces unit's journey through Afghanistan, talking about the constant pessimism about fighting an enemy who won't fight back or even show themselves, but makes their presence known quite well. After being sent on a wild goose chase by a tribal leader who had hoped to get the US to bomb a neighboring village, someone actually had the courage to write "Death to America", "God is Great", and "You are Infidels" on one of their vehicles while they were reprimanding the leader. Also talks about how detached the forces view their commanders as being from the reality of the situation on the ground, such as waiting hours before deciding to send a helicopter after a Humvee plunged off a mountain embankment and injured a soldier badly.
Hekymatyar Back In Business: A Saudi Arabian English daily reports that Gulbuddin Hekmatyar has released a statement that his organization - Hezb-e-Islami, once a US ally in the fight against the Soviets - has aligned itself with the remnants of the Taliban and with al-Qaeda.
Details Of Victory Premature: A foreign army invaded Afghanistan, quickly seized the country, installed their own puppet government, and churned out propaganda for its local citizens about how it had "liberated" afghan women from the veil, stopped terrorists, built schools, and aided in medical care, to the delight of the Afghan people; while, in reality, they were coming under daily bombardment. But, enough about the Soviets in 1979... Eric Margolis looks at the disturbing level of parallels and finds talk of victory, in the middle of constant bombardment and guerrilla warfare against US troops, as strongly premature. He also talks about afghan opium production's rise from 185 tons to 2,700, Hamid Karzai's force of 200 foreign bodyguards to protect him from his own people, the only major battle since the fall of the Taliban (which the US lost), and the ongoing costs of 5 billion monthly - almost 8 times what we spend in humanitarian assistance to the entire world.
Cluster Bombs And Civilians: Human Rights Watch's latest report on the use of cluster bombs, this time condemning the United States for their use in Afghanistan, and attempts to discourage the use of such a civilian-damaging weapon. Seeing as they've used them for every major conflict since Vietnam, however... The report also notes an ICRC report which looks at cluster bomb civilian victims - 69% of them were children. Mark Herold's fastidiously-documented and disturbing
analysis.
Too Risky?: U.S. special forces have been complaining that U.S. commanders have been turning down as "too risky" any operation that actually involves a controntation with armed Taliban or al-remnantsinants, preferring instead of do the typical "hold up a village while your search it for weapons" ire-invoking tactics.
Missed This One: I apparently missed over this report from early November, when the Afghan Supreme Court dismissed a female judge because she met President Bush without a headscarf on. But... they're liberated, and at the expense of only a few thousand civilian bombing deaths, 10s of thousands from refugee migration, and most of their civilian infrastructure!
Call Him Ismael: While most reporting on warlordism in Afghanistan has been about Gen. Dostum, organizer of the Shebargham Massacre (which the US media, unlike the rest of the world, has been kindly ignoring for the most part), Ishmael Khan recently landed himself a scathing report from Human Rights Watch. Plus: For those who talk about the "liberation" of Afghan women, lets see what RAWA (the group lauded before the Afghanistan campaign for smuggling women out of Afghanistan and running underground women's schools during the Taliban), had to say in a
recent statement.
Terry Jones On The "War On Terror": Terry Jones (of Monty Python fame) writes on our approach to fighting terror,
DynCorp Is Back: The US government has discretely replaced Hamid Karzai's bodyguards with DynCorp employees. For those of you who don't remember DynCorp, they're a private military contractor employed for "plausible deniability". During the war in Bosnia they were involved in trafficking of women for prostitution as young as 12 and in filming the rape of one of them; in Peru they helped shoot down a plane carrying US missionaries; and in Columbia on an anti-drug mission the company found no wrongdoing when an employee was accused of trying to smuggle a heroin derivative into the US.
Welcome To Al-Qaeda Town!: A border ambiguity between Pakistan and Afghanistan allows al-Qaeda members to attack a forward US base with impunity without retaliation. Plus: An excellent short
analysis on how the US has deserted Afghanistan financially.
"Bush's Afghanistan Disgrace": David Corn writes on how the US, in its attempt to get public support with the lines "liberating the Iraqi people", should take a look at the "liberation" of the Afghani people. To quote an Afghani hospital administrator, "We're fed up with foreigners coming here to look but doing nothing. Children are dying here every day that we could prevent if we just had a generator and some basic medicine." Warlordism is flourishing, looting and roving gangs are notably higher than Taliban-levels, police and soldiers haven't been paid in 11 months....
Losing Control: With near daily attacks on US bases and increased numbers of troops being called into the country, Time Magazine asks, "Is Afghanistan slipping out of America's control?" Plus:
Turning our backs and
Afghanistan Adrift
Massacre and Coverup: Warlord Abdul Rashid Dostum, who committed the Shebargham massacre where over a thousand Taliban prisoners were deliberately suffocated in sealed metal shipping containers, has now, according to the UN, been torturing witnesses to stop them from testifying. Dostum was probably our staunchest ally against the Taliban, received most of the prisoners that we captured, and most of our weapons and financial support given to the Alliance. This is about par for his (and other NA commanders')
records.
Accompanying Special Forces: An AP writer accompanies US troops on a search and seizure mission in an Afghan village. Troops enter a pro-US village, keep captive all day the entire village, tear apart their houses, strip search them, take away most of their weapons leaving them unable to defend themselves against rival warlords, take a few members of the village in for "interrogations" (if anything like most reports of interrogations, this involves sleep deprivation and beatings), and then leave after threatening that if any of them picks up a weapon before they're out of sight, they'll be shot. Leaves, that is, a now anti-US village. Plus: What do you think would happen if weapons had been
taken away in well-defended America?
Living in Guantanamo: The first few freed Guantanamo inmates talk about the conditions in the camp.
Leave The Beatings To US: Robert Fisk reports about the deteriorating human rights condition in Afghanistan, sponsored by US. Includes beatings conducted by the former Khad secret police under US supervision.
Breaking With The Script: (Amusing): A BBC reporter runs into two American soldiers who break from the "script" they're supposed to use with reporters.
With Friends Like These...: Operation Mountain Sweep culminates with the demonization of US Special Forces for speaking out and the 82nd chasing down mentally handicapped man to throw to the ground.
A Job Half Done: A look at the whole situation in Afghanistan, and how not-pretty it looks.
Afghanistan Falling: Assassin firing misses Hamid Karzai by inches, critically wounding gov. Gul Agha Shirzai. About the same time that a 2-bomb bombing rocked the center of Kabul, killing at least 15 people.
Stratfor Analysis: Situation Deteriorating Rapidly in Afghanistan: Recently "liberated" from Stratfor.com. Amongst many other things that should disturb the American people but they'll never hear about: Bagram Air Base personell ordered to destroy items identifying their families, because base is believed to be compromised.
The Death Convoy: Finally, a major news source picks up the long-documented investigation into the recent mass-grave site used by the Northern Alliance to dump the bodies of as many as several thousand prisoners they suffocated in containers and had die of exposure and disease in their open-air sanitation-less cage prison at Shebarghan - a prison regularly visited by US forces, who did nothing about it, and regularly turned prisoners over to the Alliance. UPDATE: MSNBC has pulled the article. Forget what I said nicely about MSNBC. Here's our
cache.
Meet the Backlash: Robert Fisk reports on what being (or looking like) an American means for you these days in Afghanistan, and how easily that can get you killed by the common people in the country.
Gul Agha, Warlord of the Year: Robert Fisk talks about Gul Agha and his amazing ability to play the UN. Memorable quote: "President Bush of America," the governor announced, "has really appreciated Islamic law..."
Civilian Victims in the Bombing of Afghanistan: The ultimate reference guide to the Afghanistan War, Mark Harold compiled not only a detailed analysis of almost every civilian casualty report, took highly conservative estimates, and omitted questionable figures from the total, but also analyzes the entire conflict and the reasons for these situations. A Must-Read!!!
What brought Omar and Osama together?: What brought Mullah Omar and Osama bin Laden together is now becoming clear as evidence gets pulled out of the rubble: overt military action against the latter. Before the cruise missile strikes in 1996, tensions between al-Qaeda, who viewed the Taliban as uneducated bumpkins, and the Taliban who viewed Osama as pretentious and arrogant, were on the breaking point, with Omar negotiating with Saudi Arabia to deport him to be tried for treason. UPDATE: Once again, MSNBC can't find the article; use our
cache
Hopped-up pilots?!?: U.S. officially admits pilots in Afghanistan have been using amphetamines before bombing runs. Amazingly, the US media for the most part doesn't find this newsworthy, opting instead to only report about drug use amongst baseball players. What is wrong with this picture?
Was this war about the 3-letter O-word?: Evidence against it.
What happened in Afghanistan before 9/11?: Was this war against Afghanistan pre-meditated? And if so, did that encourage the September 11th strikes? French security expert Jean-Charles Brissard and The Nation's David Corn debate the evidence. UPDATE: The Nation no longer can find the article; no google cache.
Followup on above: What was Rumsfeld doing the week before Sept. 11th?: According to a Lexis-Nexis search, he was threatening a presidential veto if money was moved from missile defense to counterterrorism efforts, amongst other efforts in the ABC (Anything But Clinton) policy.
Think Cold War: How long can we expect this war to last? Well, according to U.S. Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, we should "think (in terms of) the Cold War". More on
Wolfowitz, and other members of the Bush cabinet.
Liberation by Force: Afghanistan returns the hands of the Northern Alliance, and their hold habits follow...
The enemy of my enemy is my... enemy?: Our northern alliance allies are composed of widespread human rights violators and former allies of Osama bin Laden.
