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political commentary on international conflict from a (somewhat) rational perspective.
Recent Posts Tagged With 'afghanistan'
What the US Media Chooses to Ignore
The use of Baluchi elements, for example, is problematic, Robert Baer, a former C.I.A. clandestine officer who worked for nearly two decades in South Asia and the Middle East, told me. “The Baluchis are Sunni fundamentalists who hate the regime in ...
Washington’s Record
My captors harbored many delusions about Westerners. But I also saw how some of the consequences of Washington’s antiterrorism policies had galvanized the Taliban. Commanders fixated on the deaths of Afghan, Iraqi and Palestinian civilians in m...
I Believe It
Reports that Italian intelligence officers had been paying Taliban fighters not to attack their troops – and that France’s ignorance of this tactic left it unaware of the true security risk in the Sarobi district of Afghanistan when it to...
The Big Question
So are British troops in Afghanistan there to defend the UK from al-Qa’ida attack, as Gordon Brown says? No, we are there because the priority of British foreign policy is to stick close to the Americans. The Americans are still trying to work ...
The Nobel Peace Prize in Action
President Obama announced in March that he would be sending 21,000 additional troops to Afghanistan. But in an unannounced move, the White House has also authorized — and the Pentagon is deploying — at least 13,000 troops beyond that numb...
Couldn’t Have Said It Better
Issam al-Khazraji, a day labourer in Baghdad, said: “He doesn’t deserve this prize. All these problems — Iraq, Afghanistan — have not been solved…The man of ‘change’ hasn’t changed anything yet.” ...
Afghanistan, Eight Years On
Invading Afghanistan was a clear war crime, despite the tendency to term it the “good war” by so-called antiwar voices in the West. Instead of treating the 9/11 attacks as a unique crime and cooperating with the international community to...
This is “Change”
His successor in the White House is now sending different signals. US President Barack Obama began his career as an opponent of the Iraq war, but now, after moving to the White House, he too is making use of the superpower’s military might. Oba...
Obama’s Bombs
Afghan tribal elders said Thursday that eight people, at least five of them civilians, were killed in an airstrike in southern Afghanistan on Wednesday. An American military spokeswoman, Capt. Elizabeth Mathias, confirmed the airstrike, in the Nad Al...
Salman Rushdie’s Sage Assessment (Writing in 2002)
Western critics of America’s Afghan campaign are enraged because they have been shown to be wrong at every step: no, US forces weren’t humiliated the way the Russians had been; and yes, the air strikes did work; and no, the Northern Allia...
Scale Back
President Barack Obama is considering VP Joe Biden’s idea to scale back the troop presence in Afghanistan. (full article…)...
This is “Change”
In a troubling legal brief filed last week, the Obama administration followed the disreputable example of the Bush White House by opposing judicial review of military detentions, even for a discrete segment of prisoners: the 30 or so non-Afghan Bagra...
Another Danish Soldier Dies
Et angreb på en dansk patrulje i Afghanistan har kostet en dansk soldat livet. (full article…)...
Does Anyone Ask What the Afghans Want?
Coupled with this was a requirement for new tactics, like training more Nato troops in local languages so they would be “seen as guests of the Afghan people and their government, not an occupying army”. (full article…)...
Demoralized
On Friday, seven former CIA directors urged President Obama to end the inquiry, arguing that it would inhibit intelligence operations in the future and demoralize agency employees who believed they had been cleared by previous investigators. (full ar...
The Value of an Afghan Life
The two were immediately taken into custody and for four days whisked from hideout to hideout, in an effort to avoid detection. However, coalition forces were monitoring their cell-phone conversations and a helicopter-borne rescue operation was soon ...
Joke of the Day
“Any comparison of Israel’s fight on terror with recent conflicts in Kosovo, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan etc. immediately shows that Israel holds itself to the highest ethical standard.” (full article…)...
Ask Yourself
Ask yourself: Wouldn’t the U.S. have been safer and more secure if all the money, effort and planning had gone toward “nation-building” in America? Or do you really think we’re safer now, with an official unemployment rate of ...
How 9/11 Should Be Remembered
After 9/11, it could all have been different, profoundly different. And if it had, there would have been no children imprisoned without charges or release dates in our gulag in Cuba; there would have been no unmanned drones slaughtering wedding parti...
Obama’s War
The prosecutor of the international criminal court is collecting information on alleged war crimes committed by Nato and the Taliban in Afghanistan. (more…)...
Too Drunk or Too Hungover
US General Stanley McChrystal, head of the International Forces in Afghanistan (Isaf), decided to bar boozing after launching an investigation into the bombing in northern Afghanistan. Staff at the Kabul headquarters were ‘either drunk or too h...
An “Imperial” Presence
Pakistanis are reacting to what many here see as an “imperial” American presence, echoing Iraq and Afghanistan, with Washington dictating to the Pakistani military and the government. Polls show that Pakistanis regard the U.S., formally a...
This is “Change”
“Those who attacked America on 9/11 are plotting to do so again,” Obama said. “If left unchecked, the Taliban insurgency will mean an even larger safe haven from which al-Qaeda would plot to kill more Americans. So this is not only ...
