Post Tagged with: "Afghanistan"

Taliban government’s deputy prime minister Abdul Salam Hanafi (C) and Acting Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi (R) arrive in Moscow to attend international talks on Afghanistan, Oct. 20, 2021

The Taliban and the Islamic State Continue to Fight for Afghanistan’s Future

The Taliban’s ability to lead Afghanistan remains questionable and ongoing instability has provided the Islamic State the opportunity for expansion. On April 25, 2023, U.S. officials confirmed that the Taliban had killed the head of the Islamic State (IS) cell operating in Afghanistan. Though his identity has not been revealed, the IS leader is believed to have masterminded the 2021 Kabul airport attack that[Read More…]

by 12/05/2023 Comments are Disabled World
Calculated Misrepresentations: The US Withdrawal from Afghanistan

Calculated Misrepresentations: The US Withdrawal from Afghanistan

Succeeding administrations have a chronic habit of blaming their predecessors.  The Biden administration has been most particular on the issue, taking every chance to attack former President Donald Trump for the ills of his tenure.  But the effort to almost exclusively lay blame at Trump’s door for the US fiasco in Afghanistan was a rich one indeed, given the failings[Read More…]

by 11/04/2023 Comments are Disabled World
Calculated Exoneration: Command Responsibility and War Crimes in Afghanistan

Calculated Exoneration: Command Responsibility and War Crimes in Afghanistan

Being the scapegoat of tribal lore cast out with the heavy weight of sins remains a popular political motif.  Supposedly noble soldiers, by way of example, are punished for not adhering to the rules of war.  In breaching the codes of killing and the protocols of acceptable murder, they are banished from a realm supposedly wrapped in law.  In doing[Read More…]

by 29/03/2023 Comments are Disabled World
Afghan women need your solidarity

Afghan women need your solidarity

Today, Afghan women live under the most misogynistic regime, where they are deprived of all their human and civil rights. For this reason, Afghan women activists formed their own protest movement after the Taliban rule in August 2021, which has been organizing women’s protests in the cities of Kabul, Jalalabad, Herat, Mazar-e-Sharif and Bamiyan with the slogans (bread, work, freedom).[Read More…]

by 25/01/2023 Comments are Disabled World
NGOs decision to continue providing relief in Afghanistan is justified

NGOs decision to continue providing relief in Afghanistan is justified

When the Taliban regime in Afghanistan recently banned women from working in NGOs, several of them decided to stop working in this country, but later some of them reconsidered this decision and decided to continue working. This decision should be supported because while the ban on women working in NGOs was clearly and completely wrong, the fact that over two[Read More…]

by 23/01/2023 Comments are Disabled World
Prince Harry’s Great Afghan Shooting Party

Prince Harry’s Great Afghan Shooting Party

What to make of it?  History is filled with the deeds of blood-thirsty princes bold in ambition and feeble of mind.  Massacres make the man, though there is often little to merit the person behind it.  The Duke of Sussex seemingly wishes to add his name to that list.   In what can only be described as one of his “Nazi[Read More…]

by 07/01/2023 Comments are Disabled World
IMSD condemns the Taliban’s shutting of university gates to Muslim women

IMSD condemns the Taliban’s shutting of university gates to Muslim women

Indian Muslims for Secular Democracy (IMSD) unequivocally condemns the blatantly misogynist decree of Taliban that for all practical purposes has effectively banned women’s education in Afghanistan. Since the Taliban have taken over in 2021, girls haven’t been able to access schools. Although they promised to open girls’ school from March 23rd; the same day they revoked the order. This December[Read More…]

by 24/12/2022 Comments are Disabled World
Don’t Forget the People of Afghanistan

Don’t Forget the People of Afghanistan

An update on the hunger hot spots of the world issued by the FAO-World Food Program in September 2022 drew particular attention to the serious situation in Afghanistan. This review stated that loss of life due to hunger may be already occurring, the levels of food insecurity and ‘significant loss of life’ are likely to increase from November, as another[Read More…]

by 22/12/2022 Comments are Disabled World
Millions of Afghans Are Starving as US Stalls on Returning Central Bank Funds

Millions of Afghans Are Starving as US Stalls on Returning Central Bank Funds

In September, the U.S. created a foundation that was supposed to unfreeze Afghanistan’s foreign assets. Yet, interviews with trustees reveal that, in three months, no funds have been disbursed—or concrete plans made—to help the Afghan people. The Taliban seized power in Afghanistan in August 2021 and, in response, Europe, the United Arab Emirates and the United States froze the Afghan central bank’s roughly[Read More…]

by 21/12/2022 Comments are Disabled World
Protesting women chant "Bread, work and freedom" on August 13, 2022 in Kabul. Nava Jamshidi/Getty Images

Taliban Bring Back Executions And Amputations In Afghanistan

Executions, stonings and amputations are possible punishments for crimes once more in Taliban-controlled Afghanistan. Taliban leader Mullah Haibatullah Akhundzada ordered Afghan judges to impose Sharia-law punishments for certain crimes, according to a tweet from Zabihullah Mujahid, Mr. Akhundzada’s spokesman. Mullah Akhundzada has ordered Afghan judges to fully implement sharia law and its punishments, which include mutilations, flogging and executions. The announcement was[Read More…]

by 15/11/2022 Comments are Disabled World
Hazara’s Rally in the Aftermath of Horrific School Bombing

Hazara’s Rally in the Aftermath of Horrific School Bombing

On Oct. 8, members of the Hazara and Afghan communities in Washington, DC held a rally in McPherson Square to protest the killing of 35 schoolgirls inside the Kaaj Educational Center in the Dasht-e-Barchi district of West Kabul, Afghanistan on Sept 30. Rallies were also held around the world in 64 countries and 92 cities as Hazara calling attention to[Read More…]

by 10/10/2022 Comments are Disabled World
As floods follow earthquakes and drought in Afghanistan, the USA should immediately return its billions

As floods follow earthquakes and drought in Afghanistan, the USA should immediately return its billions

Highly destructive floods devastated parts of Afghanistan in August. This was preceded by a prolonged drought, stated to be the worst in decades, and two earthquakes this year. As an overwhelming majority of people including children face serious hunger and many-sided deprivation, the USA and others should immediately release the Afghanistan central bank reserve funds of 9 billion dollars or[Read More…]

by 31/08/2022 Comments are Disabled World
As Millions Suffer, the US Needs to End the Collective Punishment of the Afghan People

As Millions Suffer, the US Needs to End the Collective Punishment of the Afghan People

A year has now passed since the tumultuous U.S. withdrawal from decades of war and occupation in Afghanistan. With the Taliban functionally in charge, the country faces a deteriorating humanitarian crisis and economic collapse. But instead of taking action to promote stability and reinvigorate the economy, the U.S. has made it worse and penalized innocent, ordinary Afghans. According to the United[Read More…]

by 28/08/2022 Comments are Disabled World
Taliban Break Up Afghan Women’s Protest in Kabul

Taliban Break Up Afghan Women’s Protest in Kabul

Taliban fighters violently dispersed dozens of female protesters in Kabul. About 40 Afghan women marched through the capital city demanding rights, before the Taliban broke the protest march up by firing into the air. This women’s protest march occurred almost a year after the Taliban seized power. The protesters chanted demands for “bread, work and freedom”, carrying a banner reading[Read More…]

by 14/08/2022 Comments are Disabled World
Afghanistan earthquake exposes disaster caused by decades of US occupation

Afghanistan earthquake exposes disaster caused by decades of US occupation

A 6.1-magnitude earthquake in a remote area of Afghanistan has killed at least 1,000 people and injured at least 1,500. While the worst affected area is the mountainous Paktika province, deaths have also been reported in the eastern provinces of Khost and Nangarhar. Many more bodies are thought to be buried in mud as heavy rain hampers rescue efforts. The[Read More…]

by 24/06/2022 Comments are Disabled World
Earthquake: USA Must Return ‘Stolen’ 3.5 billion dollars to Afghanistan

Earthquake: USA Must Return ‘Stolen’ 3.5 billion dollars to Afghanistan

An earthquake which has been called the deadliest in two decades hit Afghanistan on June 22. The latest reports indicate that nearly 1000 people have died and the death toll is likely to increase as more reports are received from remote, cut-off areas. It is feared that crucial rescue help needed in the first 24 hours or so may not[Read More…]

by 23/06/2022 Comments are Disabled World
Afghans evacuate the wounded following an earthquake in the province of Paktika in eastern Afghanistan on June 22, 2022. (Photo: Bakhtar News Agency via AP)

Earthquake Kills 900+ in Afghanistan

A powerful earthquake in Afghanistan killed more than 900 people and injured hundreds more on Wednesday, flattening homes and devastating entire villages in a nation already ravaged by decades of U.S.-led war and an ongoing economic collapse. The earthquake, which hit overnight, had an estimated magnitude of 6.1 with an epicenter near the nation’s border with Pakistan. “The death toll is likely to[Read More…]

by 22/06/2022 Comments are Disabled World
India`s non-engagement in Afghanistan and its implications

India`s non-engagement in Afghanistan and its implications

The government of India shut down the consulate in Mazar-i-Sharif, the biggest city in the north of Afghanistan, considering a threat to the embassy staff from the Taliban which took over the reins of the government on 15 August, 2021. It is a fact that there is a perception among the international community including Indians that the Taliban would commit[Read More…]

by 25/05/2022 Comments are Disabled South Asia
Has India lost grip over Afghanistan?

Has India lost grip over Afghanistan?

    India has been sending wheat and life –saving medicines to the people of Afghanistan through Attari-wagah integrated post since the Taliban leaders took over the reins of government in Afghanistan. The government of Pakistan under former Prime Minister Imran Khan showed a goodwill gesture and the current regime under Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif extended permission for two months[Read More…]

by 19/04/2022 Comments are Disabled World
Starving a People, Committing a Genocide: Biden’s Sanctions on Afghanistan

Starving a People, Committing a Genocide: Biden’s Sanctions on Afghanistan

When the United States stole $7 billion from Afghanistan on February 11, that was no mere crime of robbery. It was a war crime and a crime against humanity that condemns possibly millions of Afghans to starvation. In short, prelude to genocide. Biden prevaricates about his excuse for this outright theft of Afghan funds, namely compensating the 9/11 victims. The[Read More…]

by 19/03/2022 Comments are Disabled World
Taliban took over a bankrupt nation

Taliban took over a bankrupt nation

American left Afghanistan and consequently the Taliban took over a bankrupt nation in August 31, 2021. The United States never succeeded in inducing good governance in Afghanistan or persuading Pakistan to stop its multifaceted support for the Taliban. US President Joe Biden imposed sanctions, announcing that a substantial portion of Afghanistan’s official reserves amounting $4.9 billion held in liquid assets[Read More…]

by 08/03/2022 Comments are Disabled World
Paralysing Afghanistan: Washington’s Regime Change Agenda

Paralysing Afghanistan: Washington’s Regime Change Agenda

Nation states are habitually doomed to defeat their best interests.  Conditions of mad instability are fostered.  Arms sales take place, regimes get propped up or abandoned, and the people under them endure and suffer, awaiting the next criminal regime change. Nothing is more counter-intuitive than the effort to isolate, cripple and strangulate the Taliban regime in Afghanistan.  For all the[Read More…]

by 21/02/2022 Comments are Disabled World
US steals billions in Afghan bank funds

US steals billions in Afghan bank funds

In an action that combines brazen theft, imperialist brutality and unlimited hypocrisy, the Biden administration announced Friday that it will seize control of $7 billion in Afghanistan financial assets, held largely at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, rather than return them to the Afghanistan central bank. Media attention has largely been devoted to Biden’s splitting of the $7[Read More…]

by 14/02/2022 1 comment World
Millions of Afghans have been displaced by the war. Photo: MikrofonNews

The Terrible Fate Facing the Afghan People

On February 8, 2022, UNICEF (the United Nations Children’s Fund) Afghanistan sent out a bleak set of tweets. One of the tweets, which included a photograph of a child lying in a hospital bed with her mother seated beside her, said: “Having recently recovered from acute watery diarrhea, two years old Soria is back in hospital, this time suffering from edema and wasting.[Read More…]

by 12/02/2022 Comments are Disabled World
 ‘Thank You for Hearing Our Afghan Pain’

 ‘Thank You for Hearing Our Afghan Pain’

People in the United States must recognize the suffering their country continues inflicting in Afghanistan. During visits to Kabul, Afghanistan, over the past decade, I particularly relished lingering over breakfasts on chilly winter mornings with my young hosts who were on their winter break from school. Seated on the floor, wearing coats and hats and draped with blankets, we’d sip[Read More…]

by 11/02/2022 Comments are Disabled World
US pips regional states at race for Kabul

US pips regional states at race for Kabul

In a hugely consequential advisory, the US Treasury Department quietly signalled on Wednesday that it was “tweaking” the sanctions against the Haqqani Network. The international banks can transfer money to Taliban, including Haqqani Network without fear of breaching sanctions.  Washington simply issued clarifications dilating on the relaxation of sanctions announced in September and December for humanitarian work in Afghanistan. The banks[Read More…]

by 04/02/2022 Comments are Disabled World
Taliban delegation led by acting foreign minister Amir Khan Muttaqi met with Western diplomats, Oslo, Norway, January 24, 2022

The West co-opts the Taliban

The three-day conclave in Oslo on January 23-25 for interaction for a core group of Western diplomats with Taliban officials marks a new phase in the political situation in Afghanistan. The West was represented by the US, UK, Germany, France and Italy as well as the European Union.  Norway is uniquely placed to reconcile alienated parties. Apart from its strong[Read More…]

by 28/01/2022 Comments are Disabled World
Souring of Taliban’s relations with Pakistan

Souring of Taliban’s relations with Pakistan

External interference in Afghanistan has reappeared much sooner than one would have expected after the Taliban takeover in Afghanistan in August. In a familiar pattern, the rumour mill has become active.   The Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova hit out today at the rumours being planted by American sources insinuating that Moscow is supplying arms to the so-called National Resistance Front of[Read More…]

by 18/01/2022 Comments are Disabled World
Are Western Wealthy Countries Determined to Starve the People of Afghanistan?

Are Western Wealthy Countries Determined to Starve the People of Afghanistan?

On January 11, 2022, the United Nations (UN) Emergency Relief Coordinator Martin Griffiths appealed to the international community to help raise $4.4 billion for Afghanistan in humanitarian aid, calling this effort, “the largest ever appeal for a single country for humanitarian assistance.” This amount is required “in the hope of shoring up collapsing basic services there,” said the UN. If this appeal is not[Read More…]

by 15/01/2022 Comments are Disabled World
Afghans protest Washington’s starvation strategy

Afghans protest Washington’s starvation strategy

Protesters have marched through the streets of Kabul over the past weeks demanding that the United States lift its financial blockade and end its illegal seizure of Afghanistan’s financial assets, which together are driving an economic meltdown in Asia’s most impoverished country. Women marched on December 29 carrying banners reading “Don’t kill us by hunger”, “Let us live” and “Joe[Read More…]

by 06/01/2022 Comments are Disabled World
20 Years Unable to Defeat Taliban Now USA Freezes Afghanistan’s $9B Bank Deposits Causing Starvation

20 Years Unable to Defeat Taliban Now USA Freezes Afghanistan’s $9B Bank Deposits Causing Starvation

 According to an analysis by the United Nations World Food Program and Food and Agriculture Organization, 8.7 million people are nearing famine — putting Afghanistan on the brink of a mass starvation. And children are among the most vulnerable… the country is facing numerous humanitarian crises, including a critical food shortage that some aid groups say could kill a million[Read More…]

by 17/12/2021 Comments are Disabled World
No Time to Rescue

No Time to Rescue

There have now emerged quite unbelievable inside pictures of the colossal failure of the British government in rescuing its friends, allies, and ordinary Afghans fleeing the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan. Raphael Marshall, a diplomat formerly in the service of her royal highness, has claimed the British evacuation operation, during the fall of Kabul, to be “dysfunctional and chaotic”, in his[Read More…]

by 08/12/2021 Comments are Disabled World
Afghanistan: Destination unknown yet

Afghanistan: Destination unknown yet

Unknown is Afghanistan’s trajectory of developments. None of the players, external and internal, knows the highly-contested land’s flight path. All of the players are unsure of possible impact of each of the tactical moves being taken by each of them. So, there’re compromises or postures to compromise, and contest – cold and hot. Already an empire has experienced, as has[Read More…]

by 01/12/2021 Comments are Disabled World
Taliban: One Hundred Days of Solitude

Taliban: One Hundred Days of Solitude

As the Taliban completes its first hundred days in power, the Western powers are groping for a face-saving formula to engage with the authorities in Kabul with some modicum of dignity.  The European Union is taking the lead role here. The European countries have a sense of urgency over potential refugee flow from Afghanistan. The EU intends to launch an[Read More…]

by 29/11/2021 Comments are Disabled World
US recognition of Taliban Government will be a game changer

US recognition of Taliban Government will be a game changer

The stunning disclosure late Tuesday in Brussels that the US is working on a “road map” for according recognition to the Taliban Government will take a lot of people by surprise but it could have been expected sooner rather than later.  The US has a consistent record of rethinking its strategies once it realises that the policy has landed in[Read More…]

by 10/11/2021 Comments are Disabled World
A man grieves during a mass funeral for members of a family was killed in a U.S. drone airstrike, in Kabul, Afghanistan, Monday, Aug. 30, 2021. (Photo: Marcus Yam/Los Angeles Times)

Was the Afghan War a Schell Game?

I waited almost three months for some acknowledgement, but it never came. Not a bottle of champagne. Not a congratulatory note. Not an email of acknowledgement. Not one media request. Authors wait their whole lives for I-told-you-so moments like these. But mine passed without accolades, awards, or adulation. Being way ahead of the pack is supposed to bring honors and rewards,[Read More…]

by 04/11/2021 Comments are Disabled Imperialism
“Now Is the Time to Be Angry” – Remembering Forgotten Afghanistan

“Now Is the Time to Be Angry” – Remembering Forgotten Afghanistan

I know, I know. It’s the last thing you want to hear about. Twenty years of American carnage in Afghanistan was plenty for you, I’m sure, and there are so many other things to worry about in an America at the edge of… well, who knows what? But for me, it’s different. I went to Afghanistan in 2002, already angry about this country’s misbegotten[Read More…]

by 01/11/2021 Comments are Disabled World
Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi met Acting Taliban Dy Prime Minister Mullah Baradar, Doha, Oct. 255, 2021

Taliban Government gains traction

All indications are that the regional states are preparing to accord recognition to the Taliban government. The meeting of regional states and Taliban officials in the so-called Moscow Format last Wednesday signalled that the Taliban government is a compelling reality and constructive engagement is needed. read more A week is a long time in politics. The foreign-minister level conference in Tehran[Read More…]

by 27/10/2021 Comments are Disabled World
A destroyed Afghanistan has been an imperialist priority for 200 years

A destroyed Afghanistan has been an imperialist priority for 200 years

As the British before them, US imperial propaganda treats itself as the victim and those they invaded and occupied as the criminal On August 18th, shortly after the Taliban took Kabul, former British Prime Minister Theresa May stood up in the British House of Commons and asked: “Where is global Britain on the streets of Kabul?” The rhetorical question, as well[Read More…]

by 27/10/2021 Comments are Disabled Imperialism
Taliban government’s deputy prime minister Abdul Salam Hanafi (C) and Acting Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi (R) arrive in Moscow to attend international talks on Afghanistan, Oct. 20, 2021

Taliban is the winner at Moscow conference

The Moscow meeting of ten regional states and the Taliban officials on Wednesday has produced an outcome that by far exceeds expectations. The salience of the consensus opinion is four-fold, as reflected in the joint statement issued after the event:  regional recognition that Taliban government is a compelling “reality”; it is through constructive engagement that regional states should endeavour to influence Taliban;  a[Read More…]

by 23/10/2021 Comments are Disabled World
Afghanistan, Taliban, Women and Pakistan

Afghanistan, Taliban, Women and Pakistan

The situation in Afghanistan is yet to calm down. Women are facing hard time and threats. The Taliban are also wearing down with problems of governance. Internal Divisions, Even Resentment A Christian Science Monitor report, ‘Why did we fight?’ Challenge of governing is wearing down Taliban, by Scott Peterson on October 21, 2021 said: “The veteran Taliban fighter once strove[Read More…]

by 22/10/2021 Comments are Disabled World
Afghanistan: Moscow meeting is a landmark event

Afghanistan: Moscow meeting is a landmark event

The United States regretted its inability to take part in the talks on Afghanistan in Moscow this week. The Russian side was pinning hopes on a meeting of the exclusive Troika Plus (US, China, Russia and Pakistan) followed by a gathering in an expanded format known as the ‘Moscow format’ on Wednesday.  The US State Department spokesman Ned Price said during a[Read More…]

by 21/10/2021 Comments are Disabled World
Despite Taliban Rule, Feminists Must Not Abandon Afghan Women

Despite Taliban Rule, Feminists Must Not Abandon Afghan Women

The situation is complex and so feminists should not take the simplistic view that a policy of non-cooperation with the Taliban is the way to support women. Since the Taliban took control of Kabul and the central government on August 15, efforts to support Afghan women have become extremely challenging. According to some prominent U.S. feminists with strong ties to Afghan women, the[Read More…]

by 15/10/2021 Comments are Disabled World
Uzbekistan Foreign Minister Abdulaziz Kamilov (left) escorted by Acting Taliban Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi (R) and Deputy Prime Minister Mullah Abdus Salam (L), Kabul, October 7, 2021

Russia draws red lines for US

Moscow has categorically stated that it will not accept a US military presence in the Central Asian region. This reiteration has come at the level of Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov who told Tass that Afghanistan had been discussed at a meeting with Victoria Nuland, the visiting US Undersecretary of State in Moscow on Tuesday.  Ryabkov added, “We emphasised[Read More…]

by 14/10/2021 Comments are Disabled World
A man grieves during a mass funeral for members of a family was killed in a U.S. drone airstrike, in Kabul, Afghanistan, Monday, Aug. 30, 2021. (Photo: Marcus Yam/Los Angeles Times)

The U.S. Killer Drone Program Stays Afloat on the Back of Lies and Pentagon Propaganda

A wrongly targeted Afghan aid worker and his family are among the latest casualties. On August 29, in the final days of our 20-year occupation of Afghanistan, the United States launched a drone strike, firing a 20-pound Hellfire missile at an aid worker named Zemari Ahmadi as he parked his car outside his home in a residential neighborhood of Kabul.[Read More…]

by 14/10/2021 Comments are Disabled World
Afghanistan Tackles the Islamic State

Afghanistan Tackles the Islamic State

On October 8, a terrible blast struck the worshippers attending Friday noon prayers at the Gozar-e-Sayed Abad Mosque in the Khan Abad district of Bandar, the capital of Kunduz, one of Afghanistan’s largest cities in its northern belt. This is a mosque frequented by Shia Muslims, who were referred to as “our compatriots” by Taliban spokesperson Zabiullah Mujahid. Forty-six people died immediately in the blast, and[Read More…]

by 13/10/2021 Comments are Disabled World
The award-winning Afghan Girls' Robotics Team

Afghan Women Embracing Financial Freedom with Cryptocurrency

With most women not permitted to possess bank accounts in Afghanistan, cryptocurrency has become a critical lifeline for women fleeing the country. A media report said: The fall of Kabul has seen more than 600,000 people fleeing the Taliban regime and, without access to bank accounts, Afghan women were immediately put in a precarious position in their ability to help[Read More…]

by 12/10/2021 Comments are Disabled World
Millions of Afghans have been displaced by the war. Photo: MikrofonNews

Failure Is Untenable: We Must Avert Afghanistan’s Economic and Food Crises

The Taliban’s cruelties are horrendous, but withholding international support and maintaining blanket sanctions will only hurt the long-suffering Afghan people. Afghanistan’s humanitarian situation is spiraling into catastrophe. Millions of Afghans are now facing severe economic stress and food insecurity in the wake of the Taliban’s August takeover, set off by widespread lost income, cash shortages, and rising food costs. Officials with the UN and several foreign[Read More…]

by 10/10/2021 Comments are Disabled World
Taliban Dy Prime Ministers Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar (C) and Mawlawi Abdul Salam Hanafi (R) met with British High Representative for Afghanistan Sir Simon Gass, Kabul, October 5, 2021

Taliban receives overtures from near and far

The Taliban is getting many suitors lately. It is far from the “pariah” that the Biden Administration thought it was destined to be. During the past month alone, the Taliban received six suitors from the region and beyond offering courtship — the foreign minister of Qatar; the special envoys of Russia, China and Pakistan; the High representative of UK Prime[Read More…]

by 09/10/2021 Comments are Disabled World
Millions of Afghans have been displaced by the war. Photo: MikrofonNews

Humanitarian Crisis Looms Large in Afghanistan and Myanmar

While political changes have been in the forefront of most recent discussion on Afghanistan and Myanmar, a serious humanitarian crisis looms large for several million people. Over 50% of the nearly 88 million people living in these troubled lands are likely to face serious shortages of food, medicine and other essential needs. Invariably minorities identified on religious, ethnic, regional or[Read More…]

by 05/10/2021 Comments are Disabled World
Why the World’s Eyes Are on the Afghanistan-Tajikistan Border

Why the World’s Eyes Are on the Afghanistan-Tajikistan Border

Afghanistan and Tajikistan share a 1,400-kilometer border. Recently, a war of words has erupted between Tajikistan’s President Emomali Rahmon and the Taliban government in Kabul. Rahmon censures the Taliban for the destabilization of Central Asia by the export of militant groups, while the Taliban leadership has accused Tajikistan’s government of interference. Earlier this summer, Rahmon mobilized 20,000 troops to the border, and held military[Read More…]

by 05/10/2021 Comments are Disabled World
Chinese ambassador Wang Yu met Acting Foreign Minister of Taliban Mawlavi Amir Khan Muttaqi, Kabul, September 26, 2021

US, UK prepare to re-engage Taliban

Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan has written yet another opinion piece in the Washington Post, sensing a turning point lies ahead with the Biden Administration assembling a sustainable, durable policy toward Afghanistan taking into account the new reality of the Taliban government.  Quintessentially, Imran Khan revisited his argument in the earlier WaPo piece in July where he had concluded: “I believe that promoting economic[Read More…]

by 30/09/2021 1 comment World
Millions of Afghans have been displaced by the war. Photo: MikrofonNews

Afghanistan’s Impoverished People Live Amid Enormous Riches

On September 25, 2021, Afghanistan’s Economy Minister Qari Din Mohammad Hanif said that his government does not want “help and cooperation from the world like the previous government. The old system was supported by the international community for 20 years but still failed.” It is fair to say that Hanif has no experience in running a complex economy, since he has spent[Read More…]

by 30/09/2021 Comments are Disabled World
On Afghanistan and Legitimate Resistance

On Afghanistan and Legitimate Resistance

An urgent task is awaiting us: considering the progression of events, we must quickly liberate ourselves from the limits and confines placed on the Afghanistan discourse, which have been imposed by US-centered Western propaganda for over 20 years, and counting. A first step is that we must not allow the future political discourse pertaining to this very subject to remain[Read More…]

by 30/09/2021 Comments are Disabled World
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov flanked by Taliban officials attending a conference on Afghanistan, Moscow, November 2018

Afghanistan and China, NATO, Russia

Afghanistan is now a hot issue among the world powers. China has talked to NATO while Russian Foreign Minister has said about a common approach by U.S., China, Russia and Pakistan. Media reports said: China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi has held a virtual meeting with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg to discuss the situation in Afghanistan, amid longstanding disagreements between[Read More…]

by 28/09/2021 1 comment World
Oil Politics, Taliban and Islamophobia: Impact on India

Oil Politics, Taliban and Islamophobia: Impact on India

Withdrawal of US army from Afghanistan has led to the Taliban coming to power. The scene created in Afghanistan has been very disturbing. The minorities trying to flee, the Muslims attempting to leave the country desperately have made a sad spectacle. This has drawn global attention to the phenomenon in Afghanistan. The past record of Taliban rule is flashing in[Read More…]

by 26/09/2021 Comments are Disabled World
The Taliban fighters posing for family photo and relaxing in the Presidential Palace, Kabul, Afghanistan, Aug 15, 2021

Strict Punishment, Amputations and Executions will Return to Afghanistan, says Taliban Co-founder

Mullah Nooruddin Turabi, a co-founder of the Taliban who will control prisons under the new regime in Afghanistan, said strict punishment, including amputations and executions, will return. “Everyone criticized us for the punishments in the stadium, but we have never said anything about their laws and their punishments,” Turabi said in Kabul during an interview, which was published Thursday by the[Read More…]

by 24/09/2021 Comments are Disabled World
A Parable of (All-American) Violence – Accountability and the War of Terror

A Parable of (All-American) Violence – Accountability and the War of Terror

As a religious studies professor, I know a parable when I see one. Consider the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks and the final events in this country’s war in Afghanistan as just such a parable taken directly from the history of our moment. The heart-wrenching last days of that war amounted to a cautionary tale about the nature of[Read More…]

by 23/09/2021 Comments are Disabled Imperialism
Who Represents Afghanistan: Genuine Activists vs ‘Native Informants’

Who Represents Afghanistan: Genuine Activists vs ‘Native Informants’

  Scenes of thousands of Afghans flooding the Kabul International Airport to flee the country as Taliban fighters were quickly consolidating their control over the capital, raised many questions, leading amongst them: who are these people and why are they running away? In the US and other Western media, answers were readily available: they were mostly ‘translators’, Afghans who ‘collaborated’[Read More…]

by 23/09/2021 Comments are Disabled World
Stay Home: Taliban-run Kabul Municipality Orders Female Workers

Stay Home: Taliban-run Kabul Municipality Orders Female Workers

Female employees of the Kabul municipality have been told to stay home, with work only allowed for those who cannot be replaced by men, the interim mayor of Afghanistan’s capital said Sunday, detailing the latest restrictions on women by the new Taliban rulers. The decision to prevent most female city workers from returning to their jobs is another sign that[Read More…]

by 20/09/2021 Comments are Disabled World
US Drones Still Fly Over the Afghan Horizon

US Drones Still Fly Over the Afghan Horizon

Facing unrelenting criticism over the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, the Biden Administration is insisting that the United States will maintain a capability to launch airstrikes in Afghanistan, regardless of the legal limitations and possibility of perpetuating the war. The Biden Administration vows to keep in place an “over-the-horizon capability,” meaning that the United States will still be able to strike targets in Afghanistan[Read More…]

by 18/09/2021 Comments are Disabled World
The rise of Taliban and Taliban-ism

The rise of Taliban and Taliban-ism

One must go back a few decades to understand the birth of Taliban and the continuity of this phenomenon that has shaken the world, quite literally. Yes the world underneath one’s foot shook on 9/11/2001, tremors caused by the country cousin of Taliban called Al Qaida. Getting back to a few decades as proposed in the beginning, it started around[Read More…]

by 17/09/2021 Comments are Disabled World
Taliban patrol after they took over Panjshir Valley, Sept 6, 2021

Panjshir needs help

The Taliban’s rapid advance in Afghanistan has briefly stalled only in the face of strong resistance mounted by the people of the country’s recalcitrant mountainous province of Panjshir. Whoever controls the region’s passes controls the routes leading to China and Tajikistan, but to seize this mountain valley and, most importantly, to keep it permanently under control has always been a[Read More…]

by 17/09/2021 Comments are Disabled World
“Do Not Touch My Clothes”: Afghan Women Post Selfies in Colorful Dresses to Protest Taliban Dress Codes

“Do Not Touch My Clothes”: Afghan Women Post Selfies in Colorful Dresses to Protest Taliban Dress Codes

Fatima Kakkar, MD, MPH (@DrFatimaKakkar) wrote: Proudly wearing in our traditional, colourful, vibrant Afghan clothes #DoNotTouchMyClothes #AfghanWoman #AfghanistanCulture #AfganistanWomen Afghan women are protesting Taliban imposed women dress code. At the same time, Taliban organized a head to toe veiled women gathering at the Shaheed Rabbani Education University in Kabul on September 11, 2021 attended by a few dozens of women[Read More…]

by 17/09/2021 Comments are Disabled Uncategorized
Millions of Afghans have been displaced by the war. Photo: MikrofonNews

The Debacle of “Nation Building” in Afghanistan and Iraq

In one of his interviews before the Taliban retook Afghanistan, John Bolton, Trump’s former national security adviser, blamed the American failure in Afghanistan on a change in Washington’s mission from anti-terrorism to “nation building.” In his view, Washington should just have held strategic sites in the country to keep terrorists off balance and not engaged in an ambitious reconstruction of[Read More…]

by 16/09/2021 1 comment World
Pentagon claimed its “righteous strike” by a Reaper drone on Aug. 28 in Kabul killed an ISIS terrorist who turned out to be an aid worker. Attack killed 10, including 7 children, in a residential block.

Afghanistan and India’s ‘over-the-horizon’ dilemma

In England, they’d plan a park, build it but wouldn’t complete it until they could observe  for a while the foot tracks of walkers, before deciding where to lay the pathways for optimal utility.  The Blinken Administration and Modi Govt apparently think they don’t have that luxury when it comes to Afghanistan. That is the troubling signal out of the Congressional[Read More…]

by 16/09/2021 1 comment World
Afghan refugees are surrounded by security forces at the Poland-Belarus border on August 26, 2021. The group of migrants from Afghanistan has been stuck at the E.U.'s eastern border for several weeks as Belarus and Poland both refuse to let them in. (Photo: Maciej Moskwa/NurPhoto via Getty Images)

No, The World Is Not Welcoming Afghan Refugees as It Should

Despite the outpouring of international sympathy for Afghans who fled their country after the Taliban takeover last month, it’s by no means certain this will translate into receiving the refuge they are entitled to under international law. Austria, Poland, Slovenia, Switzerland and Russia have categorically said they won’t accept new Afghan arrivals. Slovenia’s foreign minister even reportedly issued an outrageous warning[Read More…]

by 16/09/2021 Comments are Disabled World
Trade caravan on the Silk Road, Central Asia

Foreign Devils on the Silk Road

The title of an unputdownable 1980 classic by Peter Hopkirk comes to mind even as the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation and the Collective Security Treaty Organisation are preparing to hold back-to-back summit meetings at Dushanbe, Tajikistan, on September 17.  Foreign Devils on the Silk Road: The Search for the Lost Treasures of Central Asia tells the breathtaking story of the intrepid men[Read More…]

by 15/09/2021 Comments are Disabled World
Handover ceremony at Camp Anthonic, from US Army to Afghan Special Forces, Helmand province, Afghanistan, May 2, 2021.

The True Lessons of the Afghan War

Disagreements over how to assess the American exodus from Afghanistan have kept the pundits busy these last weeks, even though there wasn’t much to say that hadn’t been said before. For some of them, however, that was irrelevant. Having overseen or promoted the failed Afghan War themselves, all the while brandishing various “metrics” of success, they were engaged in transparent reputation-salvaging. Not[Read More…]

by 14/09/2021 Comments are Disabled World
The Winner in Afghanistan: China

The Winner in Afghanistan: China

A Debacle Marks the Decline of Washington’s World Leadership The collapse of the American project in Afghanistan may fade fast from the news here, but don’t be fooled. It couldn’t be more significant in ways few in this country can even begin to grasp. “Remember, this is not Saigon,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken told a television audience on August 15th, the[Read More…]

by 13/09/2021 Comments are Disabled World
Afghan tribal leaders and religious scholars and youth leaders from the central provinces (Hazarajat) met former president Hamid Karzai regarding formation of inclusive government, Kabul, September 11, 2021

Afghanistan: Enter regional states

The Taliban hoisted their black and white flag on the presidential palace in Kabul on September 11, which happens to be the twentieth anniversary of the Al-Qaeda’s attack on New York and Washington, DC. The symbolism is too obvious to be missed. Although the Taliban had no hand in the 9/11 attacks, it took the brunt of the US’ revenge[Read More…]

by 12/09/2021 Comments are Disabled World
Handover ceremony at Camp Anthonic, from US Army to Afghan Special Forces, Helmand province, Afghanistan, May 2, 2021.

Quagmire of American Imperialism in Afghanistan and Beyond

Many commentators from different ideological orientations provide a false equivalence of American withdrawal from Afghanistan with the fall of Saigon. It is false because American imperialism was thoroughly defeated by the revolutionary programmes and fighting spirit of Viet Cong. It led to rise of united, egalitarian, democratic, peaceful, and prosperous Vietnam. On the other hand, the imperialist invasion has ruined[Read More…]

by 10/09/2021 1 comment Imperialism
Taliban get a government!

Taliban get a government!

The regional states will be shell-shocked by the brazen way Lt. Gen. Faiz Hameed, head of Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), coerced the Taliban to announce an interim government that is guaranteed to preserve Rawalpindi’s control over the levers of power in Kabul. There are several things to be noted about the so-called interim government announced by the Taliban on September[Read More…]

by 09/09/2021 Comments are Disabled World
Taliban patrol after they took over Panjshir Valley, Sept 6, 2021

The fall of Panjshir 

Panjshir has fallen to the Taliban with a bang — and a whimper. The bang is because a 40-year old legend lies shattered, the legend of the invincibility of Panjshir Valley. And the whimper is because the short-lived ‘resistance’ had a tame ending.  A BBC report said the revolt’s two top leaders Ahmad Massoud and Amrullah Saleh were not even[Read More…]

by 08/09/2021 1 comment World
Handover ceremony at Camp Anthonic, from US Army to Afghan Special Forces, Helmand province, Afghanistan, May 2, 2021.

The Decline and Fall of the Roman… Whoops!… American Empire

They weren’t kidding when they called Afghanistan the “graveyard of empires.” Indeed, that cemetery has just taken another imperial body. And it wasn’t pretty, was it? Not that anyone should be surprised. Even after 20 years of preparation, a burial never is. In fact, the shock and awe(fulness) in Kabul and Washington over these last weeks shouldn’t have been surprising, given[Read More…]

by 07/09/2021 Comments are Disabled Imperialism
A man grieves during a mass funeral for members of a family was killed in a U.S. drone airstrike, in Kabul, Afghanistan, Monday, Aug. 30, 2021. (Photo: Marcus Yam/Los Angeles Times)

The “Longest War” is not over

Speaking from the White House on August 31, President Joe Biden lied to the people of the U.S. and to the world: “Last night in Kabul, the United States ended 20 years of war in Afghanistan — the longest war in American history.” The U.S. war on Afghanistan did not end— it has only adapted to technological advances and morphed[Read More…]

by 07/09/2021 Comments are Disabled World
Twenty Years of the Afghanistan Occupation Ends: A New Phase of Struggle Begins

Twenty Years of the Afghanistan Occupation Ends: A New Phase of Struggle Begins

In 2007, I travelled throughout Afghanistan with an Afghan-Canadian research partner,(1) and we asked more than one hundred Afghans: What do you think about the international intervention in Afghanistan? It was as evident then as it has been proven now that a critical mass of Afghans perceived the invasion and occupation of Afghanistan as illegitimate, unnecessary, and serving the interests[Read More…]

by 04/09/2021 1 comment World
Millions of Afghans have been displaced by the war. Photo: MikrofonNews

Afghanistan and the US corporate media

The Taliban’s lightning fast takeover of Afghanistan was amazingly achieved with relatively little killing and bloodshed. Since the rout of the government, an entity essentially installed by the US, the Taliban has been assuring the Afghan people that its governance style will be more moderate than under its previous rule. Many people in Afghanistan are very fearful and particularly skeptical[Read More…]

by 04/09/2021 Comments are Disabled World
India’s Afghan Policy : A Review (Part-2)

India’s Afghan Policy : A Review (Part-2)

MEA’s statement Aug 31 said Indian envoy Deepak Mittal met Sher Mohd Abbas Stanekzai, Head of Taliban’s Political Office, in Doha that day, in the first formal exchange. India’s concerns were raised that “Aghanistan’s soil should not be used for anti-Indian activities and terrorism in any manner.” And he “assured that these issues would be positively addressed.” It is high[Read More…]

by 03/09/2021 2 comments World
Handover ceremony at Camp Anthonic, from US Army to Afghan Special Forces, Helmand province, Afghanistan, May 2, 2021.

Afghanistan – Ominous echoes from the past

Developments in Afghanistan, prior to and after its takeover by the Taliban, remind us of the political realignment of global powers in Europe on the eve of the 2nd World War. Although a tiny state (covering 652,000 km – slightly smaller than Texas – with a population of 26.5 million), Afghanistan might well be the pivot on which the reconfiguration[Read More…]

by 03/09/2021 Comments are Disabled World
Qatar’s Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani (R) receiving Taliban co-founder Abdul Ghani Baradar (2nd-R), Doha, Sept. 2020

Rise and rise of Qatar in Taliban-ruled Afghanistan

When the US State Department announced that it would host a virtual ministerial meeting on August  30 with “key partners on Afghanistan,” there was an element of surprise in the list of participants. Apart from the US’ NATO and EU allies, there was a solitary non-western partner country — Qatar.  What qualified this peninsular Arab country to be invited to join such a privileged circle of America’s[Read More…]

by 02/09/2021 Comments are Disabled World
Handover ceremony at Camp Anthonic, from US Army to Afghan Special Forces, Helmand province, Afghanistan, May 2, 2021.

On Propaganda and Failed Narratives: New Understanding of Afghanistan is a Must

For twenty years, two dominant narratives have shaped our view of the illegal US invasion and occupation of Afghanistan, and neither one of these narratives would readily accept the use of such terms as ‘illegal’, ‘invasion’ and ‘occupation.’ The framing of the US ‘military intervention’ in Afghanistan, starting on October 7, 2001, as the official start of what was dubbed[Read More…]

by 02/09/2021 Comments are Disabled World
A man grieves during a mass funeral for members of a family was killed in a U.S. drone airstrike, in Kabul, Afghanistan, Monday, Aug. 30, 2021. (Photo: Marcus Yam/Los Angeles Times)

Estimated Cost of Post-9/11 US Wars Hits $8 Trillion With Nearly a Million People Dead

With the final U.S. soldiers leaving Afghanistan earlier this week after nearly 20 years of occupation and war, a new analysis released Wednesday shows the United States will ultimately spend upwards of $8 trillion and that nearly one million people have lost their lives so far in the so-called “global war on terror” that was launched after the attacks of September[Read More…]

by 01/09/2021 1 comment World
President Joe Biden speaks about the end of the war in Afghanistan from the State Dining Room of the White House, Tuesday, Aug. 31, 2021, in Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

Biden’s speech on Afghanistan: An admission of a shattering defeat

US President Joe Biden delivered a speech Tuesday afternoon declaring an end to the 20-year US war in Afghanistan. Coming the day after a C-17 military transport plane flew the last US troops out of Kabul and in the midst of celebrations in the streets of Afghanistan of the end of US occupation, Biden’s speech included statements never before heard[Read More…]

by 01/09/2021 Comments are Disabled World
Droning Disasters: A US Strike on Kabul

Droning Disasters: A US Strike on Kabul

No more profoundly disturbing statement was needed.  In the dying days of the official US departure from Kabul, a US drone etched its butcher’s legacy with a strike supposedly intended for the blood-lusty terrorist group ISIS-K, an abbreviation of Islamic State in Khorasan Province.  Its members had taken responsibility for blasts outside Harmid Karzai International Airport that had cost the[Read More…]

by 01/09/2021 Comments are Disabled World
Handover ceremony at Camp Anthonic, from US Army to Afghan Special Forces, Helmand province, Afghanistan, May 2, 2021.

Afghanistan: Farewell to Arms, Predator Drones, Night Raids…?

It is right that the Western troops are finally leaving our country — they should have done so much earlier. We cannot have a serious peace process as long as the Americans are in Afghanistan. We must build our country with our [own] hands. …The Americans replaced the barbaric regime of the Taliban with brutal warlords, and then began to negotiate[Read More…]

by 31/08/2021 Comments are Disabled World
Taliban patrol Kabul, Afghanistan, August 24, 2021

Afghanistan: The First Mistake

Establishment journalists and politicians are despairingly asking: Why did we fail in our well-meaning efforts to help the Afghan people? What were our mistakes? But they ignore their first mistake: creating the Taliban. The USA’s attempts to dominate Afghanistan and its resources began 40 years ago when Jimmy Carter in one of his last acts as president approved a CIA[Read More…]

by 31/08/2021 2 comments World
Handover ceremony at Camp Anthonic, from US Army to Afghan Special Forces, Helmand province, Afghanistan, May 2, 2021.

A Vengeful American Empire Has Been Humiliated in Afghanistan

The Americans, like the British and the Soviets before them, dug their own graveyard in Afghanistan. The Carthaginian general Hannibal, who came close to defeating the Roman Republic in the Second Punic War, committed suicide in 181 BC in exile as Roman soldiers closed in on his residence in the Bithynian village of Libyssa, now modern-day Turkey. It had been[Read More…]

by 31/08/2021 1 comment World
Millions of Afghans have been displaced by the war. Photo: MikrofonNews

Afghanistan Crisis Must End America’s Empire of War, Corruption and Poverty

by Medea Benjamin and Nicolas J. S. Davies Americans have been shocked by videos of thousands of Afghans risking their lives to flee the Taliban’s return to power in their country – and then by an Islamic State suicide bombing and ensuing massacre by U.S. forces that together killed at least 170 people, including 13 U.S. troops. Even as UN[Read More…]

by 30/08/2021 Comments are Disabled World
Sirajuddin Haqqani, specially designated global terrorist under US law, carrying a reward of $5 million for information leading to his arrest, tipped as as Afghanistan’s prime minister (File photo)

Taliban has a package deal with US. Coast is clear for new government in Kabul 

The US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan discussed today in an interview with CBS “Face the Nation” the evolving relationship between Washington and the Afghan Taliban. Three things emerge.  First, Sullivan disclosed that “over-the-horizon strikes” against the ISIS-K from outside Afghanistan will continue but he ruled out any return to combat missions. Second, Sullivan claimed that after the complete withdrawal[Read More…]

by 30/08/2021 Comments are Disabled World
External affairs minister S. Jaishankar with Union ministers Piyush Goyal and Pralhad Joshi, briefs the all-party panel over the present situation in Afghanistan in New Delhi, August 26, 2021. Photo: PTI/Vijay Verma

The All-Party Meeting, India’s Subservient Afghan Policy: A Review

This is a review, in two parts, of some aspects of the All-Party Meeting on Afghanistan August 26, convened by the Modi-led Indian govt. This Part-1deals with India’s foreign policy on the Afghan question. Part-2 will discuss some other aspects, of evacuation, of domestic politics etc. It was stated by the Govt that evacuating Indian personnel from the country is[Read More…]

by 30/08/2021 1 comment India
Afghanistan: Time for Peace, Reconstruction, Nation-Building & International Engagement – The Challenges Ahead

Afghanistan: Time for Peace, Reconstruction, Nation-Building & International Engagement – The Challenges Ahead

The Russia-China led SCO emerges to replace US-NATO both in military & economic terms These are indeed remarkable times we live in, even as history is unfolding before our very eyes. At the beginning of the 21st Century, the US was the global hegemon, bombing & invading country after country, terrorising the world, all in the name of fighting the[Read More…]

by 30/08/2021 Comments are Disabled World
      Baz Ratner/Reuters US troops in Afghanistan, June 2011

Afghanistan, the great game of smashing countries

As a tsunami of crocodile tears engulfs Western politicians, history is suppressed. More than a generation ago, Afghanistan won its freedom, which the United States, Britain and their “allies” destroyed. In 1978, a liberation movement led by the People’s Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA) overthrew the dictatorship of Mohammad Dawd, the cousin of King Zahir Shar. It was an immensely[Read More…]

by 30/08/2021 Comments are Disabled Imperialism
Senseless Violence in Afghanistan

Senseless Violence in Afghanistan

On August 26, 2021, a terrorist attack struck the area outside of the US-occupied Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul, Afghanistan. Islamic State Khorasan Province (ISIS-K), a regional offshoot of Islamic State (ISIS), has officially taken responsibility for the bombing. The blasts killed more than 180 Afghan civilians. Thirteen US servicemen, two British nationals and the child of another British national[Read More…]

by 29/08/2021 Comments are Disabled World
The Plight of Afghans and Geopolitical Games – Analysis

The Plight of Afghans and Geopolitical Games – Analysis

“The disaster the people of Afghanistan have endured over decades is beyond human imagination and the plight of the people has multiplied with big power games in Eurasia, which eventually resulted in the Taliban take over,” according to Dr. K.B. Usha, faculty at the Centre for Russian and Central Asian Studies, School of International Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi.[Read More…]

by 29/08/2021 Comments are Disabled World
Death toll in Kabul airport terrorist attack rises to 170

Death toll in Kabul airport terrorist attack rises to 170

The official death toll from the terrorist attack outside Kabul international airport on Thursday was increased significantly on Friday to over 160. The number of Afghan victims almost tripled and the US Defense Department confirmed the death of one additional service member, bringing the total of American military fatalities to 13. At a Defense Department press briefing Friday morning, Major[Read More…]

by 28/08/2021 Comments are Disabled World
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov flanked by Taliban officials attending a conference on Afghanistan, Moscow, November 2018

India reaches out to Russia to break out of regional isolation over Afghanistan

The Indian establishment media hyped up Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s call with Russian President Vladimir Putin on August 24 in a desperate attempt to distract attention from Delhi’s abject isolation over the Afghanistan situation. The desperation to clutch at any straw stems out of the complete breakdown of India’s Afghan policy. The government’s narrative on Afghanistan stands exposed as deeply[Read More…]

by 28/08/2021 Comments are Disabled World
Humiliating Defeat In Afghanistan

Humiliating Defeat In Afghanistan

The mainstream Western media is full of news these days about people fleeing Kabul in the wake of the Taliban victory. Dramatic pictures of young and old scrambling to get on to jam-packed aeroplanes do make a huge impact. The message they convey is that a collective fear has gripped the Afghan people as they seek to escape the iron[Read More…]

by 28/08/2021 Comments are Disabled World
Terror bombs, gunfire kill at least 72 in Afghanistan capital

Terror bombs, gunfire kill at least 72 in Afghanistan capital

In what the US military described as a “complex attack,” several terrorists attacked a screening checkpoint at a gate into the Kabul airport and a nearby hotel on Thursday, inflicting a horrific toll of death and destruction. Unnamed Afghan health officials told the media that at least 60 Afghan citizens were killed and another 140 wounded. The Pentagon said that[Read More…]

by 27/08/2021 1 comment World
Terrorist strikes in Kabul: A political windfall for Taliban

Terrorist strikes in Kabul: A political windfall for Taliban

The horrific terrorist strikes in Kabul on Thursday which killed at least 12 US servicemen and dozens of civilians will lead to a higher level of cooperation between the US and the Taliban. The commander of CENTCOM Gen. Kenneth McKenzie disclosed to journalists on Thursday that the US was already sharing information on terror threats in Afghanistan with Taliban. As[Read More…]

by 27/08/2021 Comments are Disabled World
New Taliban, New Afghanistan?

New Taliban, New Afghanistan?

After 20 years of US/NATO/Afghan Puppet Army’s brutal and illegal occupation of Afghanistan, Kabul, the capital city finally fell on August 15, 2021, at the hands of the reclusive but a defiant new Taliban. The Fall has turned all military calculus upside down – world’s mightiest have been defeated by the world’s smallest, a jungle army, the new Taliban! Pundits[Read More…]

by 27/08/2021 Comments are Disabled World
The Neocons Speak: Afghanistan as Political Real Estate

The Neocons Speak: Afghanistan as Political Real Estate

When the tears dry, it is worth considering why there is so much upset about the fall of Kabul (or reconquest) by the Taliban and the messy withdrawal of US-led forces.  A large shield is employed: women, rights of the subject, education.  Remove the shield, and we are left with a simple equation of power gone wrong in the name[Read More…]

by 27/08/2021 Comments are Disabled World
Two Decades After  Assassination, the Lion of Panjshir Continues to Inspire Resistance

Two Decades After  Assassination, the Lion of Panjshir Continues to Inspire Resistance

Just two days before the horrible 9/11 attack on the USA, on September 9  2001, another extremely tragic attack took place in  far-away Afghanistan which resulted in the assassination of rebel commander Ahmad Shah Massoud, the fabled Lion of Panjshir. As subsequent events were to prove, this 9/9 attack was related to the bigger 9/11 attack . What is even[Read More…]

by 27/08/2021 Comments are Disabled World
US Vice-President Kamala Harris (L) being presented with a spray of orchids named after her, as Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong (R) looks on, Singapore, August 23, 2021

Quad meets the “Saigon moment”

The regional tour of Southeast Asia by the US Vice-President Kamala Harris got inundated with the tsunami of criticism over the United States’ frantic efforts to complete the evacuation out of Kabul Airport by the month-end. Again, Israel being a hugely attractive topic in US news cycles, Harris’ visit to Singapore and Vietnam may get marginalised with the arrival of[Read More…]

by 26/08/2021 Comments are Disabled World
A Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicle being loaded on to a flatbed trailer, Bagram Air Field, Afghanistan. (File photo) 

Phony War/ Phony Empire

Well, you can see on the literally thousands of clips showing the chaos in Afghanistan… as if it only wasn’t always like this. Twenty years ago the Junior Bush Cabal , as I label them, decided to listen to their empire handlers and create a Phony War in Afghanistan and then another one in Iraq. Who orchestrated the rise of[Read More…]

by 26/08/2021 1 comment World
Taliban patrol Kabul, Afghanistan, August 24, 2021

US senses that Taliban is reality – Implications   

The CIA Director William Burns had to travel to Kabul to seek a concession from the Taliban leadership to extend the August 31 deadline for the evacuations at Kabul Airport, which the Taliban political chief Mullah Ghani Baradar plainly refused.  Beijing is almost certain to provide a firewall for the Taliban government against Western pressures. Put differently, the US influence[Read More…]

by 26/08/2021 Comments are Disabled World
Fleeing Conflict

Fleeing Conflict

The distressing images coming from Afghanistan following the call of withdrawal of US forces is yet another poignant reminder of the humanitarian crisis facing millions of people around the world. According to the United Nations refugee agency more than 70 million people worldwide were displaced in 2018. In the past three years more numbers have been added to this tally.[Read More…]

by 25/08/2021 Comments are Disabled Human Rights
Wandering 40 Years in the Afghan Desert

Wandering 40 Years in the Afghan Desert

The Taliban have taken military control, but Afghanistan’s future is cloudy. Assumption that the Taliban can, by itself, effectively govern a nation divided by conflicting tribal loyalties and a partially  reconstituted population, with a sharply contrary mindset, needs more validation. Rather than facts, agendas have delegated responsibility for the debacle in Afghanistan. Analysis demonstrates that United States President Joe Biden is[Read More…]

by 25/08/2021 Comments are Disabled World
US-Taliban ties on razor’s edge. China is the winner

US-Taliban ties on razor’s edge. China is the winner

  A panoramic view of Mes Ayna on the gentle hills and craggy mountains in Logar province 40 kilometres south-east of Kabul, Afghanistan, where Chinese firms signed contracts to mine one of the world’s largest untouched copper deposits estimated to contain 450 million metric tonnes of ore worth at least US$50 billion. China  disclosed that unnamed US mining companies have[Read More…]

by 25/08/2021 Comments are Disabled World
The Taliban fighters posing for family photo and relaxing in the Presidential Palace, Kabul, Afghanistan, Aug 15, 2021

Indian Muslims must reject the ‘Islamic Emirate’ in Afghanistan: IMSD

Around 150 Indian Muslims, supported by others committed to secular-democratic politics, have today called upon the Indian Muslim community to reject the idea of the ‘Islamic Emirate’ the Taliban seek to impose on the war-weary people of Afghanistan who are yearning for peace. The signatories include two retired High Court judges, legal luminaries, lawyers practising in the Supreme Court and[Read More…]

by 24/08/2021 2 comments World
Afghan Holocaust – The Awful Truth Versus US Alliance Lies

Afghan Holocaust – The Awful Truth Versus US Alliance Lies

The 20 year Afghan War has ended  and the war criminal US, UK, NATO and Australian invaders have all but left a devastated land. The Indigenous Afghan Taliban rapidly and peacefully took over all of formerly Occupied Afghanistan as the collaborator government collapsed and the US-trained Afghan forces offered no resistance. A peaceful, liberated Afghanistan hopefully faces a brighter future[Read More…]

by 22/08/2021 1 comment World
Protest in Westwood, California 2002. Photo: Carolyn Cole/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images

Will Americans Who Were Right on Afghanistan Still Be Ignored?

by Medea Benjamin and Nicolas J. S. Davies  America’s corporate media are ringing with recriminations over the humiliating U.S. military defeat in Afghanistan. But very little of the criticism goes to the root of the problem, which was the original decision to militarily invade and occupy Afghanistan in the first place. That decision set in motion a cycle of violence[Read More…]

by 20/08/2021 Comments are Disabled Imperialism
Taliban patrol in Wazir Akbar Khan neighborhood in the city of Kabul, Afghanistan, Wednesday, Aug. 18, 2021.

And so it begins again: The media recycles Afghanistan war lies

In the days following the desperate evacuation of US troops from Afghanistan, the corporate press has launched an international propaganda campaign raising concerns for the “human rights” of residents of the Central Asian country. For the last 20 years, the corporate media and imperialist powers of the world raised no objections as the United States killed over 100,000 people, set[Read More…]

by 20/08/2021 1 comment World
The Crimes of the West in Afghanistan and the Suffering That Remains

The Crimes of the West in Afghanistan and the Suffering That Remains

As in Iraq, as in Libya, as in Mali. It is time to finally bury the doctrine of the so-called “responsibility to protect”, which was coined at the time of the beginning of the Afghan war, and to brand it as what it was from the beginning: a neocolonial project. The headless flight of NATO troops from Afghanistan and the[Read More…]

by 20/08/2021 3 comments Imperialism
Taliban and Al Qaeda: Putting a fox in charge of the chicken coop?

Taliban and Al Qaeda: Putting a fox in charge of the chicken coop?

Abu Omar Khorasani was taken from Kabul’s Pul-i-Charkhi prison and unceremoniously shot. The first and only person to have been executed since the Taliban gained full control of Afghanistan, Mr. Khorasani was the head of the Islamic State in South Asia until he was arrested by government forces last year. The precise circumstances of his execution are not known. His[Read More…]

by 19/08/2021 Comments are Disabled World
Remembering Afghanistan’s Revolutionary Experiment

Remembering Afghanistan’s Revolutionary Experiment

After assuming power in Kabul, the Taliban has tried to soften its extremist image. In a press conference on August 17, 2021, the group’s spokesperson Zabihullah Mujahid said, inter alia, that they are committed to provide women their rights in accordance with Islam and that there will be no discrimination against them. He said women could work and go to school, but their[Read More…]

by 19/08/2021 Comments are Disabled World
America’s Afghan Debacle & West’s Collective Bungle

America’s Afghan Debacle & West’s Collective Bungle

Taliban’s return to Kabul this week in lightning speed dislodging world’s No.1 self-styled sole Superpower Uncle Sam, is outstanding as much as astounding, considering Taleban’s de facto rag-tag force with primitive weapons and nil airpower. They outsmarted the U.S. in almost every department of high-altitude mountain guerrilla war. Quite significant too, that a U. S. push-out was accomplished even before[Read More…]

by 19/08/2021 2 comments World
Who “Lost” Afghanistan, America or India?

Who “Lost” Afghanistan, America or India?

I got this on WhatsApp this morning: “If you ever feel useless, just remember … USA took 4 Presidents, thousands of lives, trillions of dollar and 20 years to replace Taliban with Taliban.” Keeping aside the humour and sarcasm, one must admire Americans’ candidness, once they know what they are talking or writing about. However, the bulk of  Americans are[Read More…]

by 19/08/2021 1 comment World
The Taliban fighters posing for family photo and relaxing in the Presidential Palace, Kabul, Afghanistan, Aug 15, 2021

Reflections on Events in Afghanistan

Afghan ambassador to Washington Ms. Adela Raz said that President Ghani and his cronies simply emptied the Afghan Treasury and left with the loot…India’s policymakers couldn’t have been unaware that a cabal was ruling Afghanistan but deliberately chose to ignore it… The Washington Post has exposed that the Pentagon commanders lied and the ‘forever war’ continued… The disconcerting fact is,[Read More…]

by 19/08/2021 1 comment World
Stakes in Afghanistan!

Stakes in Afghanistan!

Speculations resting on numerous analyses are being voiced on what does withdrawal of United States from Afghanistan and take-over by Taliban really indicate? The former aspect is being viewed by most as defeat of the Superpower and the latter as probable return of terrorism to the country spelling distress for most, particularly women. Let us view the ground reality from[Read More…]

by 19/08/2021 Comments are Disabled Imperialism
Afghanistan: After Action Report

Afghanistan: After Action Report

“To President Theodore Roosevelt – you are like the Wind and I like the Lion. You form the Tempest. The sand stings my eyes and the Ground is parched. I roar in defiance but you do not hear. But between us there is a difference. I, like the lion, must remain in my place. While you like the wind will[Read More…]

by 18/08/2021 Comments are Disabled World
Wounded Paternalism: Biden and the US Imperial Complex

Wounded Paternalism: Biden and the US Imperial Complex

Civilisation has tended to be seen like a gift by those claiming to grant it.  It is done, in the sense Rudyard Kipling intended it, with solemn duty.  It is a task discharged as a burden borne heavily.  In its modern form, notably in the hands of the US, it comes with fast food, roads, schools and blue chip stocks. [Read More…]

by 18/08/2021 Comments are Disabled Imperialism
Taliban And India’s Threat Perception

Taliban And India’s Threat Perception

Taliban’s re-capture of Afghanistan was virtually certain after the February 2020 (Doha) US-Taliban deal concerning US forces pull-out from Afghanistan. Afghanistan’s immediate and regional neighbours had plenty of time to re-strategize the forthcoming situation. However, Taliban’s easy capture of Kabul due to the unexpectedly rapid collapse of Afghan forces trained and equipped by USA, has surprised all. Reports of Afghanistan[Read More…]

by 17/08/2021 Comments are Disabled World
Biden’s Afghanistan speech: America’s criminal war ends in debacle

Biden’s Afghanistan speech: America’s criminal war ends in debacle

On Monday afternoon, US President Joe Biden delivered a nationally televised address in response to the collapse of the US-backed puppet government in Afghanistan. The scale and historical impact of the catastrophe suffered by American imperialism in Afghanistan, which in many respects exceeds even its defeat in the Vietnam War, found expression in the speech, perhaps the bleakest address by[Read More…]

by 17/08/2021 1 comment Imperialism
Cry, the Beloved Humanity

Cry, the Beloved Humanity

Some countries are in shambles. Some countries are in a wreck — war torn, poverty-ridden, divided deeply from the world where such expressions are only hyperboles and not a reality. The major war in these fortunate parts of the world currently is mainly with the pandemic. These nations still have the bandwidth to explore how to make more money and[Read More…]

by 16/08/2021 Comments are Disabled World
The Taliban take Kabul

The Taliban take Kabul

It unfolded as a story of fleeing.  The Afghan president Ashraf Ghani, taking flight to Tajikistan, giving little clue of his intentions to colleagues.  The fleeing of the infamous Abdul Rashid Dostum, a warlord assured to fight another day. The fleeing of tens of thousands of residents out of the city of Kabul, long seen as beyond the reach of[Read More…]

by 16/08/2021 Comments are Disabled World
Ashraf Ghani and the Fate of Afghanistan

Ashraf Ghani and the Fate of Afghanistan

On August 11, 2021, Pakistan’s Prime Minster Imran Khan said, “I tried to persuade the Taliban… three to four months back when they came here…The condition is that as long as [Afghanistan’s President] Ashraf Ghani is there, we [Taliban] are not going to talk to the Afghan government.” Three days later, news has arrived that Ghani is pondering over resignation,[Read More…]

by 15/08/2021 1 comment World
What starts in Afghanistan does not stay in Afghanistan: China, India, and Iran grapple with the fallout

What starts in Afghanistan does not stay in Afghanistan: China, India, and Iran grapple with the fallout

Taliban advances in Afghanistan shift the Central Asian playing field on which China, India and the United States compete with rival infrastructure-driven approaches. At first glance, a Taliban takeover of Kabul would give China a 2:0 advantage against the US and India, but that could prove to be a shaky head start. The potential fall of the US-backed Afghan government[Read More…]

by 15/08/2021 1 comment World
Taliban in Kunduz city, northern Afghanistan on Aug. 9, 2021. (AP Photo/Abdullah Sahil)

A Taste of Panic: The Taliban Continues its Advance

The historical vectors are moving with conviction and purpose; the weak and lacking in conviction are in retreat and the gun is doing the talking.  The government of Afghan President Ashraf Ghani, the security services and the Afghan National Army, seem to be either huddled in despair, capitulating or fleeing before the inexorable advance of the Taliban.  They have the[Read More…]

by 15/08/2021 1 comment World
Displaced Afghans from the northern provinces are evacuated from a makeshift IDP camp in Share-e-Naw park to various mosques and schools on August 12, 2021 in Kabul, Afghanistan. People displaced by the Taliban advancing are flooding into the Kabul capital to escape the Taliban takeover of their provinces. (Photo: Paula Bronstein/Getty Images)

US Empire’s Afghan Ponzi Scheme Comes to Ignoble End

The United States lost the Afghanistan War a long time ago, as is quickly becoming apparent as the Taliban take city after city. After 2002, it was never clear what the US war aim was. You can’t win a war if you don’t have a clear objective. The war is lost before it begins. The initial US military action against the[Read More…]

by 14/08/2021 2 comments World
A member of the Afghan security forces walks in the sprawling Bagram air base after the American military departed, in Parwan province north of Kabul, Afghanistan, Monday, July 5, 2021 [Credit: AP Photo/Rahmat Gul]

US troops return to Afghanistan as regime disintegrates

The first of some 3,000 US soldiers and Marines ordered by the Biden administration back into Afghanistan began arriving at Kabul’s international airport Friday as six more of Afghanistan’s provincial capitals were overrun by the Taliban, bringing the total to 18 that have fallen to the insurgency. Another 4,000 US troops are being sent to Kuwait for a possible rapid[Read More…]

by 14/08/2021 Comments are Disabled World
Taliban in Kunduz city, northern Afghanistan on Aug. 9, 2021. (AP Photo/Abdullah Sahil)

US sending 3,000 troops to Afghanistan as major cities fall to Taliban

The Pentagon announced Thursday that the US is sending 3,000 US soldiers and Marines into Afghanistan with the ostensible mission of securing US diplomatic facilities in Kabul and organizing the evacuation of American civilians. Britain is sending 600 soldiers for the same purpose. The US deployment of one Army and two Marine infantry battalions has been ordered as the lightning[Read More…]

by 13/08/2021 Comments are Disabled World
Ending 20 years of occupation war in Afghanistan

Ending 20 years of occupation war in Afghanistan

Taliban WAS the Government of Afghanistan for 4 Years When USA Invaded & Put in a Drug Lord Regime and For 20 Years the Taliban Continued To Govern Half of Afghanistan Outside the Cities and Coalition Military Bases Chronology: 1978, Afghani King overthrown. Popular women liberating Socialist gov. installed in Kabul. July,1979, Prez Carter secretly funds its overthrow by fundamentalist[Read More…]

by 13/08/2021 Comments are Disabled World
US intelligence warns Kabul could fall within one month

US intelligence warns Kabul could fall within one month

The collapse of US-backed Afghan security forces in the face of a nationwide offensive by the Taliban insurgency has led US military and intelligence officials to warn that the fall of Kabul could come within one month to 90 days, the Washington Post reported Wednesday. The new estimate represents a change in the already grim projection that the US-backed puppet regime of[Read More…]

by 12/08/2021 Comments are Disabled World
Handover ceremony at Camp Anthonic, from US Army to Afghan Special Forces, Helmand province, Afghanistan, May 2, 2021.

Biden Must Call Off the B-52s Bombing Afghan Cities

by Medea Benjamin & Nicolas J. S. Davies Nine provincial capitals in Afghanistan have fallen to the Taliban in six days – Zaranj, Sheberghan, Sar-e-Pul, Kunduz, Taloqan, Aybak, Farah, Pul-e-Khumri and Faizabad – while fighting continues in four more – Lashkargah, Kandahar, Herat & Mazar-i-Sharif. U.S. military officials now believe Kabul, Afghanistan’s capital, could fall in one to three months.[Read More…]

by 11/08/2021 Comments are Disabled World
Foreign Ministers of Shanghai Cooperation Organisation at Dushanbe with Tajikistan President Emomali Rahmon, July 14, 2021

UK scripts new Afghan plot for US

As often in modern history, Britain provides the plot for Washington to act. Russia, China, Iran are in the US crosshairs and Washington’s future agenda is principally oriented to blocking China’s Belt & Road, promoting regime change in Central Asia, using militant Islam as geopolitical tool, and consolidating a long-term presence in Afghanistan as a template of its Indo-Pacific strategy. [Read More…]

by 29/07/2021 Comments are Disabled World
Afghan children walk past a Taliban Red Unit, an elite force, Alingar district, Laghman province in eastern Afghanistan (File photo) 

Afghanistan, Failure and Second Thoughts

It is a country other powers simply cannot leave alone.  Even after abandoning its Kabul post in ignominy, tail tucked between their legs, Australia is now wondering if it should return – in some form.  The Department of Trade and Foreign Affairs has been sending out a few signals, none of them definitive.  “We will not comment on intelligence matters,”[Read More…]

by 27/07/2021 Comments are Disabled World
Flag of Afghan Taliban (in white) was raised on the Afghan side of the border with Pakistan at the major border crossing at Chaman, 14 July 2021. The ministerial meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) and the meeting of the SCO-Afghanistan working group at Dushanbe on July 13-14 have thrown light on the templates of China’s approach to the evolving situation in Afghanistan. 

China explains its Afghan motivations

Contrary to the paranoia in the western (and Indian) media,  Wang prioritised China’s security concerns in the prevailing situation in 3 main directions –  namely, prevent the present conflict from morphing into a full-fledged civil war; restart the peace talks quickly; and, eliminate the risk of Afghanistan becoming again a revolving door of international terrorist groups. China’s commitment to the[Read More…]

by 18/07/2021 Comments are Disabled World
U.S. transfers an airfield to Iraqi government forces in 2020. Credit: public domain

America’s Afghan War Is Over, So What About Iraq – and Iran?

by Medea Benjamin and Nicolas J. S. Davies At Bagram air-base, Afghan scrap merchants are already picking through the graveyard of U.S. military equipment that was until recently the headquarters of America’s 20-year occupation of their country. Afghan officials say the last U.S. forces slipped away from Bagram in the dead of night, without notice or coordination. The Taliban are[Read More…]

by 12/07/2021 Comments are Disabled Imperialism
Taliban co-founder Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar (R, bottom) at the peace talks with Afghan government, Doha, Qatar (File photo)

Afghanistan, Iran And USA

Introduction On July 7, 2021 Iran hosted talks between the Afghan Government and Taliban (the Taliban delegation was led by Sher Mohammad Abbas Stanikzai). The same day, the Taliban attacked the Badghis provincial capital Qalat-i-Naw. Iranian Foreign Minister, Javad Zarif emphatically stated that the Afghan people should decide their own future, while also stating that there was a major threat[Read More…]

by 11/07/2021 Comments are Disabled World
      Baz Ratner/Reuters US troops in Afghanistan, June 2011

America- Led NATO in Afghanistan: Crimes against Humanity Call for Accountability

 “We Are Going to Lose the War in Afghanistan and it will Help Bankrupt us. One of our major strategic blunders in Afghanistan was not to have recognized that both Great Britain and the Soviet Union attempted to pacify Afghanistan using the same military methods as ours and failed disastrously. We seem to have learned nothing from Afghanistan’s modern history[Read More…]

by 08/07/2021 Comments are Disabled Imperialism
Bagram after US military left the base, Kabul, July 5, 2021 

A hybrid war to replace Afghan ‘forever war’?

The British newspaper Daily Telegraph did some kite-flying in the weekend that London is considering open-ended deployment of a contingent of elite special forces to Afghanistan “ to provide training to Afghan units and deploy with them on the ground as advisers.” At the same time, the New York Times reported that White House approves Gen. Austin S. Miller, the[Read More…]

by 07/07/2021 Comments are Disabled Imperialism
Biden Acknowledges “Over The Horizon” Air Attacks Planned Against Taliban

Biden Acknowledges “Over The Horizon” Air Attacks Planned Against Taliban

“Over-the-horizon” air operations, possibly directed at the Taliban, may rely very heavily on drone assassination and drone targeting for manned aircraft. On July 2, fleeing questions from reporters about U.S. plans in Afghanistan, President Joe Biden sought refuge behind the July 4th Independence Day holiday, yet obliquely acknowledged that the U.S. will use some level of “over the horizon” air attacks[Read More…]

by 05/07/2021 Comments are Disabled Imperialism
Leaving Bagram Airbase: The Day the US Imperium Turned Tail

Leaving Bagram Airbase: The Day the US Imperium Turned Tail

From the Bagram Airbase they left, leaving behind a piece of the New York World Trade Centre that collapsed with such graphic horror on September 11, 2001.  As with previous occupiers and occupants, the powers that had made this venue a residence of war operations were cutting their losses and running. Over the years, the base, originally built by the[Read More…]

by 04/07/2021 Comments are Disabled Imperialism
Handover ceremony at Camp Anthonic, from US Army to Afghan Special Forces, Helmand province, Afghanistan, May 2, 2021.

Taliban has won the war in Afghanistan, says Lord Dannatt, former British army head

The Taliban has “prevailed” in its battle with the West in Afghanistan, said General Lord Dannatt, the former head of the British Army as it emerged all UK and U.S. troops will be withdrawn on Sunday. Writing in The Telegraph, General Lord Dannatt said: “Ultimately, Taliban force of arms has prevailed, and the people of that country have been denied the[Read More…]

Handover ceremony at Camp Anthonic, from US Army to Afghan Special Forces, Helmand province, Afghanistan, May 2, 2021.

The Long Crusades of Western Imperialism

In late April 2021, US President Joe Biden announced  a withdrawal from Afghanistan. In other words, the US has been trounced in Afghanistan by its very own jihadist Frankenstein, the Taliban. The defeat of USA is covered with the ugly debris of history. The dirty war on Afghanistan was part of a disastrous process of occupying and controlling large swathes of the[Read More…]

by 26/06/2021 Comments are Disabled World
Taliban co-founder Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar (R, bottom) at the peace talks with Afghan government, Doha, Qatar (File photo)

USA’s Hypocritical Dealings with Taliban

Speculations abound over Taliban’s aim to exploit the vacuum left by the partial withdrawal of US-NATO troop to seize control of the capital Kabul and re-establish an Islamic Emirate, similar to the one the US dislodged from power after its 2001 invasion. The ground reality seems to confirm these concerns about an impending civil war. Violence and territorial contestations are[Read More…]

by 18/06/2021 Comments are Disabled World
Afghan children walk past a Taliban Red Unit, an elite force, Alingar district, Laghman province in eastern Afghanistan (File photo) 

Pakistan’s Geopolitical Game in Afghanistan

On June 14, 2021, Pakistan Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi spoke at the inaugural Pakistan-Afghanistan Bilateral Dialogue in Islamabad. His tone was mildly aggressive. Talking about USA’s pullout from Afghanistan, Qureshi said: “If the objective of going to Washington is starting a new blame game and holding Pakistan responsible for all the ills and the lack of progress in the[Read More…]

by 17/06/2021 1 comment World
Handover ceremony at Camp Anthonic, from US Army to Afghan Special Forces, Helmand province, Afghanistan, May 2, 2021.

Leave Kabul: Foreign missions prepare for evacuation

In the wake of U.S. and NATO troops withdrawal, foreign missions in Kabul are preparing for evacuation. Media reports said: The U.S. Defense Department and the State Department are drawing up plans for the possible evacuation of Afghans whose lives are in danger because of their work for the U.S. government, the U.S. military’s top officer said. Army Gen. Mark[Read More…]

by 29/05/2021 Comments are Disabled World
Afghan children walk past a Taliban Red Unit, an elite force, Alingar district, Laghman province in eastern Afghanistan (File photo) 

Afghan nationalism faces existential challenge — Part 2

 India is hardly in a position to assert on the Afghan chessboard… The bottom line is that New Delhi is highly unlikely to do anything that may undermine the US strategy in Afghanistan, which, incidentally, also has an “Indo-Pacific” dimension to it… New Delhi selectively intensifies its engagement with those world capitals that share its concerns over China’s rise and[Read More…]

by 29/05/2021 Comments are Disabled World
A Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicle being loaded on to a flatbed trailer, Bagram Air Field, Afghanistan. (File photo) 

Afghan nationalism faces existential challenge — Part 1

Afghan conundrum is mutating  The commencement of the troop withdrawal from Afghanistan by the United States and the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation has got off to a flying start. So far there has been no hiccup. One significant landmark has been the vacation of the big American base at Kandahar, southern Afghanistan. There is some poignancy here. A recent despatch[Read More…]

by 28/05/2021 Comments are Disabled World
China blocks US bases in Central Asia

China blocks US bases in Central Asia

Photo taken on May 9, 2021 shows the books of students who were killed in a car bomb attack in Kabul, capital of Afghanistan. (Photo by Rahmatullah Alizadah/Xinhua). Over 80 people were killed in successive explosions outside a girls’ high school in Kabul, the capital of Afghanistan, most of the victims were girl students. US withdrawal from Afghanistan must be[Read More…]

by 21/05/2021 Comments are Disabled World
Endless, Unfulfilled Yearnings For Peace in Afghanistan

Endless, Unfulfilled Yearnings For Peace in Afghanistan

One of the  world’s most inspiring movements for peace involved the Pashtun community. It was led by Badshah Khan, and earned the highest praise from Mahatma Gandhi who visited the villages and towns of the movement almost as a pilgrimage site. From 1933 to 1973, when Zahir Shah was the king for 40 long years, Afghanistan had a long period[Read More…]

by 17/05/2021 Comments are Disabled World
Handover ceremony at Camp Anthonic, from US Army to Afghan Special Forces, Helmand province, Afghanistan, May 2, 2021.

US-Taliban acquiesce to live and let live

But the US withdrawal is no longer conditions-based, which means the Taliban have achieved their number one objective without bending on any of the key issues such as their continuing links with the al-Qaeda or their agenda to reestablish the Islamic Emirate…  Apparently, all that the US extracted out of the Taliban is a tacit understanding that the western troops[Read More…]

by 15/05/2021 Comments are Disabled Uncategorized
Kabul School Bombing A Dreadful Reminder of Dangers Ahead

Kabul School Bombing A Dreadful Reminder of Dangers Ahead

When children leave school for the day they are in a joyous mood. They are happy to be going home, and yet they have so much to tell their friends before they go. So friends cling to each other to say all their  precious important things before they separate for the day. Free of the discipline of the classroom and[Read More…]

by 15/05/2021 Comments are Disabled World
The True Meaning of the Afghan “Withdrawal”

The True Meaning of the Afghan “Withdrawal”

Many of us have had a recurring nightmare. You know the one. In a fog between sleeping and waking, you’re trying desperately to escape from something awful, some looming threat, but you feel paralyzed. Then, with great relief, you suddenly wake up, covered in sweat. The next night, or the next week, though, that same dream returns. For politicians of[Read More…]

by 06/05/2021 Comments are Disabled Imperialism
Taliban co-founder Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar (R, bottom) at the peace talks with Afghan government, Doha, Qatar (File photo)

Breakthrough in Afghan peace process!

The “extended Troika” on the Afghan problem comprising the United States, Russia, and China — and Pakistan — have announced in Doha on April 30 Friday a road map in consultation with the Ashraf Ghani government and Taliban as regards the way forward in immediate terms for reaching a peace settlement. The announcement followed consultations in Doha with the involvement[Read More…]

by 04/05/2021 Comments are Disabled World
Is America hoping its withdrawal from Afghanistan makes that war-ravaged country China’s problem now?

Is America hoping its withdrawal from Afghanistan makes that war-ravaged country China’s problem now?

A car bomb attack in Pakistan, possibly aimed at a Chinese diplomat, has demonstrated just how important peace and stability in the region is to Beijing and its $65 billion Belt and Road Initiative. On April 21 Wednesday evening a deadly blast struck a Pakistan hotel stemming from a car bomb, claiming four lives. The apparent target of the attack[Read More…]

by 04/05/2021 Comments are Disabled World
Afghan National army (ANA) soldiers line up during military training in  Badakhshan province, Afghanistan, on May 8, 2016 (Photo by Mohammad Sharif Shayeq/NurPhoto) *** Please Use Credit from Credit Field ***

Reports from Afghanistan: General’s comment, blast, cost

U.S. general: Afghan forces could face ‘bad possible outcomes’ A May 2, 2021, Washington datelined AP report said: Afghan government forces face an uncertain future and, in a worst-case scenario, some “bad possible outcomes” against Taliban insurgents as the withdrawal of American and coalition troops accelerates in the coming weeks, the top U.S. military officer said Sunday. Gen. Mark Milley[Read More…]

by 03/05/2021 Comments are Disabled World
Tradeoff for US vaccine unthinkable

Tradeoff for US vaccine unthinkable

  The big question is whether the US is relenting on the vaccine front with a view to cut a deal with India on Afghanistan. But if past experience is any guide, Washington has shown savviness to exploit India’s travails. However, Afghanistan is a ‘graveyard of empires.’ The calculus of fratricidal wars keeps changing and India is best advised to[Read More…]

by 27/04/2021 Comments are Disabled India
A new study from Brown University's Costs of War Project found that the U.S. "War on Terror" has killed half a million people in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. (Photo: Spc. Phillip McTaggart/Flickr/cc)

The Graveyard of Empires Redux

America’s Ruinous Pursuit of Mission Impossible in Afghanistan On May 1st, the date Donald Trump signed onto for the withdrawal of the remaining 3,500 American troops from Afghanistan, the war there, already 19 years old, was still officially a teenager.  Think of September 11, 2021 — the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks and the date Joe Biden has chosen for the same —[Read More…]

by 26/04/2021 Comments are Disabled Imperialism
Activists Brian Terrell and Ghulam Hussein Ahmadi at the Border Free Center in Kabul, Afghanistan. Graffiti by Kabul Knight, photo by Hakim

Biden’s Drone Wars

On Thursday, April 15, the New York Times posted an article headed, “How the U.S. Plans to Fight From Afar After Troops Exit Afghanistan,” just in case anyone misunderstood the previous day’s headline, “Biden, Setting Afghanistan Withdrawal, Says ‘It Is Time to End the Forever War’” as indicating the U.S. war in Afghanistan might actually come to an end on[Read More…]

by 19/04/2021 Comments are Disabled Imperialism
President Joe Biden wipes his eye as he walks through Arlington National Cemetery to honor fallen veterans of Afghan war, April 14, 2021.2400 American forces were killed, and 20,000 wounded .

Chronicle of the unavailing Afghan war

The occupation of Afghanistan became an end in itself, with war profiteering turning into a roaring business with money, women, drug trafficking, foreign bank accounts, contractors — all thrown into it…thus a limited punitive mission by two dozen special forces personnel morphed into a Sisyphean exercise that lasted nineteen years. *** One missing part in US President Joe Biden’s remarks[Read More…]

by 18/04/2021 1 comment World
Children in Afghanistan - Photo credit: cdn.pixabay.com

Reactions to U.S. troop withdrawal from Afghanistan

Reactions to the U.S. decision to withdraw troop from Afghanistan are mixed. A few are of disappointment. Media reports said: ‘Not what we’d hoped for’: UK military chief disappointed Britain’s military chief has expressed disappointment at president Joe Biden’s decision to withdraw U.S. troops from Afghanistan. General Sir Nick Carter, the Chief of the Defense Staff, said it was “not[Read More…]

by 18/04/2021 Comments are Disabled World
A new study from Brown University's Costs of War Project found that the U.S. "War on Terror" has killed half a million people in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. (Photo: Spc. Phillip McTaggart/Flickr/cc)

Empire’s Afghan War: A lost war, a profitable war

Afghan-chessboard is difficult. Now, with the US president’s latest Afghan-move, the chessboard is going to be more difficult, and more complex. It’s now neither a Stunning Queen Sacrifice nor a Bishop Endgame. Is it a Desperado Sacrifice or a Rook and Pawn Endgame? It’s difficult to ascertain now. US President Joe Biden has officially announced that US troops will leave[Read More…]

by 17/04/2021 Comments are Disabled Imperialism
U.S. Joins Past Empires In Afghan Graveyard

U.S. Joins Past Empires In Afghan Graveyard

Written by Medea Benjamin and Nicolas J S Davies An Afghan taxi-driver in Vancouver told one of us a decade ago that this day would come. “We defeated the Persian Empire in the eighteenth century, the British in the nineteenth, the Soviets in the twentieth. Now, with NATO, we’re fighting twenty-eight countries, but we’ll defeat them, too,” said the taxi-driver,[Read More…]

by 17/04/2021 Comments are Disabled World
India should welcome the end of US occupation of Afghanistan

India should welcome the end of US occupation of Afghanistan

A Taliban unit in Laghman, Afghanistan, Dec. 2020 (File photo) To be sure, the “forever war” in Afghanistan is ending on a sombre note. The US has barely managed to avoid a humiliating defeat. The final legacy will be that there are limits to American power. India will do well to bear this mind as it consorts with the Quad. [Read More…]

by 17/04/2021 Comments are Disabled World
Children in Afghanistan - Photo credit: cdn.pixabay.com

Exiting Afghanistan: Biden Sets the Date

It had to be symbolic, and was represented as such.  Forces of the United States will be leaving Afghanistan on September 11 after two decades of violent occupation, though for a good deal of this stretch, US forces were, at best, failed democracy builders, at worst, violent tenants. In his April 14 speech, President Joe Biden made the point that[Read More…]

by 16/04/2021 Comments are Disabled World
As the US plans its Afghan troop withdrawal, what was it all for?

As the US plans its Afghan troop withdrawal, what was it all for?

A woman embracing her husband after his return from a deployment to Afghanistan in 2014. David Goldman/AP.More than 2,400 American service members were killed in Afghanistan and more than 20,000 were wounded. What exactly am I supposed to tell these mothers that their sons died for? What was it all for? It remains unclear if the more than 2,400 US[Read More…]

by 16/04/2021 Comments are Disabled Imperialism
      Baz Ratner/Reuters US troops in Afghanistan, June 2011

China resents US presence in Afghanistan

This is second in the series on the flux in the global scene by the seasoned diplomat, an expert on Middle East, Eurasia, Central Asia, South Asia and the Asia-Pacific…Third on Myanmar will follow. The “hidden agenda” of the war on terror in Afghanistan has been an open secret. The first inkling of its geopolitical character came when it transpired[Read More…]

by 01/04/2021 1 comment Imperialism
      Baz Ratner/Reuters US troops in Afghanistan, June 2011

Requiem for the American Century

“Ours is the cause of freedom. We’ve defeated freedom’s enemies before, and we will defeat them again… [W]e know our cause is just and our ultimate victory is assured… My fellow Americans, let’s roll.” — George W. Bush, November 8, 2001 In the immediate wake of 9/11, it fell to President George W. Bush to explain to his fellow citizens what[Read More…]

by 29/03/2021 Comments are Disabled Imperialism
Children in Afghanistan - Photo credit: cdn.pixabay.com

U.S. Joins “Rules-Based World” on Afghanistan

Written by Medea Benjamin and Nicolas J. S. Davies On March 18, the world was treated to the spectacle of U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken sternly lecturing senior Chinese officials about the need for China to respect a “rules-based order.” The alternative, Blinken warned, is a world in which might makes right, and “that would be a far more[Read More…]

by 26/03/2021 Comments are Disabled World
      Baz Ratner/Reuters US troops in Afghanistan, June 2011

Confused in Afghanistan: The Biden Administration’s Latest Trick

The Biden administration continues to engage in that favourite activity White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki can only describe as “circling back”.  And much circling is taking place in the context of Afghanistan. The cupboard of calamities is well stocked, with the US facing an emboldened Taliban keen to hold Washington to its word in withdrawing the last troops by[Read More…]

by 24/03/2021 Comments are Disabled World
      Baz Ratner/Reuters US troops in Afghanistan, June 2011

Biden, Afghanistan and Forever Wars

The papers are full of suggestions on what US President Joe Biden should do about his country’s seemingly perennial involvement in Afghanistan.  None are particularly useful, in that they ignore the central premise that a nation state long mauled, molested and savaged should finally be left alone.  Nonsense, say the media and political cognoscenti.  The Guardian claims that he is[Read More…]

by 04/03/2021 Comments are Disabled World
U.S. wasted billions on cars, buildings in Afghanistan

U.S. wasted billions on cars, buildings in Afghanistan

The U.S. wasted billions of dollars in war-torn Afghanistan on buildings and vehicles that were either abandoned or destroyed, said a report released Monday by a U.S. government watchdog. The agency said it reviewed $7.8 billion spent since 2008 on buildings and vehicles. Only $343.2 million worth of buildings and vehicles “were maintained in good condition,” said the Special Inspector[Read More…]

by 01/03/2021 Comments are Disabled World
Picture of Aussie soldier gulping beer from ‘prosthetic leg of dead Taliban fighter’

Freedom of Expression: Good for the Western Goose, Forbidden for the Muslim Gander

When French president Emmanuel Macron was pilloried in some quarters for defending freedom of expression as a French value, Australian prime minister Scott Morrison backed his European counterpart: “We share values. We stand for the same things.” This professed French/Australian value for freedom of expression has now come back to bite the backside of the Australian prime minister. When it[Read More…]

by 08/12/2020 Comments are Disabled World
 Chinese Cartoon & US Lackey Australia’s Complicity In Mass Murder of Afghan Children

 Chinese Cartoon & US Lackey Australia’s Complicity In Mass Murder of Afghan Children

A Chinese official has used a cartoon showing an Australian soldier threatening a child with a knife  to rightly castigate US lackey and serial war criminal Australia over horrendous Australian war crimes in Occupied Afghanistan. Australian politicians, journalists, academics and commentators have indignantly responded by falsely describing the cartoon as a doctored image or fake image, and ignoring passive mass[Read More…]

by 05/12/2020 Comments are Disabled World
Picture of Aussie soldier gulping beer from ‘prosthetic leg of dead Taliban fighter’

Imperfect Releases: Andrew Hastie, War Crimes Reports and Australia in Afghanistan

If one were to get into the head of Australian government MP Andrew Hastie, a security tangle of woe would no doubt await.  Having been a captain with the Special Air Services and having also served in Afghanistan, he has been none too thrilled by the publicity soldiers he served with have received.  The report by New South Wales Court[Read More…]

by 05/12/2020 1 comment World
The David McBride Case: Whistleblowing, Afghanistan and Australian War Crimes

The David McBride Case: Whistleblowing, Afghanistan and Australian War Crimes

Much complaint can be had of the Inspector-General of the Australian Defence Force Afghanistan Inquiry Report. It exempts political actors of responsibility for alleged atrocities and war crimes. It suggests that those in the highest echelons of the Australian Defence Forces are ignorant in incompetent innocence.  It spares the desk warriors and flays the field operatives. Heavily redacted, this document[Read More…]

by 03/12/2020 Comments are Disabled World
Picture of Aussie soldier gulping beer from ‘prosthetic leg of dead Taliban fighter’

Australia’s Afghanistan War Crimes: A Case of Old Habits Die Hard?

Every time you start to believe that West is your model of morality, you get a jolt. Recent revelations of horrific war crimes committed by the Australian soldiers in Afghanistan where innocent men, women and children were deliberately and gruesomely killed are a rude reminder that West’s claim to morality is not just outright falsehood, their colonial habits of abuse[Read More…]

by 03/12/2020 Comments are Disabled World
Like a Rocket in the Garden: The Unending War in Afghanistan

Like a Rocket in the Garden: The Unending War in Afghanistan

People in the United States continue to pretend that the despair and futility we’ve caused isn’t our fault. Late last week, I learned from young Afghan Peace Volunteer friends in Kabul that an insurgent group firing rockets into the city center hit the home of one volunteer’s relatives. Everyone inside was killed. Today, word arrived of two bomb blasts in[Read More…]

by 26/11/2020 Comments are Disabled World
      Baz Ratner/Reuters US troops in Afghanistan, June 2011

 Actually Ending the War in Afghanistan

Let’s open up and sing, and ring the bells out Ding-dong! the merry-oh sing it high, sing it low Let them know the wicked witch is dead! Within establishment circles, Donald Trump’s failure to win re-election has prompted merry singing and bell-ringing galore. If you read the New York Times or watch MSNBC, the song featured in the 1939 movie The Wizard of[Read More…]

by 25/11/2020 2 comments Imperialism
Skewed Responsibility: Australian War Crimes in Afghanistan

Skewed Responsibility: Australian War Crimes in Afghanistan

The Inspector-General of the Australian Defence Force Afghanistan Inquiry was always going to make for a gruesome read – and that was only the redacted version.  The findings of the four-year investigation, led by New South Wales Court of Appeal Justice and Army Reserve Major-General Paul Brereton, point to “credible evidence” that 39 Afghan non-combatants and prisoners were allegedly killed[Read More…]

by 24/11/2020 Comments are Disabled World
Impunity and Carefree Violence: Australia’s Special Forces in Afghanistan

Impunity and Carefree Violence: Australia’s Special Forces in Afghanistan

In 2016, Australian Major General Jeff Sengelman approached the then chief of the Australian army Lieutenant General Angus Campbell with a nagging worry. The concern lay in allegations that Australian special forces had committed various war crimes in Afghanistan.  Sengelman was then special forces commander; Campbell was chief of the army.  Sociologist Samantha Crompvoets was duly commissioned to write a[Read More…]

by 26/10/2020 Comments are Disabled World
Is peace possible in Afghanistan?

Is peace possible in Afghanistan?

Doha peace talks, held in September of 2020, between the Afghan government and Taliban, led by peace council chairman Abdullah Abdullah and Mullah Baradar Akhund respectively, is a remarkable advancement towards the establishment of peace in Afghanistan, despite the fact that it is still difficult to say about when the ongoing conflicts started with the USA invasion in 2001 after[Read More…]

by 16/10/2020 Comments are Disabled South Asia
Afghan children play in the bombed out rubble of the Darul Aman Palace in Kabul, amidst a photo exhibition marking four decades of Afghans killed in war and oppression. Photo credit: Maya Evans

Afghanistan: 19 Years of War

The NATO & US backed war on Afghanistan was launched 7th October 2001, just a month after 9/11, in what most thought would be a lightning war and a stepping stone onto the real focus, the Middle East. 19 years later and the US is still trying to extricate itself out of the longest war in its history, having failed[Read More…]

by 13/10/2020 Comments are Disabled World
Afghanistan On A Very Sticky Wicket

Afghanistan On A Very Sticky Wicket

The Afghan-Taliban and the US sponsored Ashraf Ghani government seem to be heading towards a deadlock,  as very soon US, after its disastrous war with Afghan-Taliban , is slated to move out in 14-months, after its agreement with the Afghan-Taliban on February 29, 2020 1 , thus, leaving it in-between Ashraf Ghani and Afghan-Taliban to decide their future for themselves.[Read More…]

by 18/09/2020 Comments are Disabled World
Peace process in Afghanistan: En route to failure?

Peace process in Afghanistan: En route to failure?

The ongoing peace process provided an opportunity for Afghan factions to unite and undo all the wrongs committed against them in the past 20 years. Unfortunately, the internal strife of Afghanis has again prevailed over this opportunity. Explicitly, compelled by the upcoming election promise, the US wishes to withdraw forces from Afghanistan. China and Pakistan are earnestly pushing the peace[Read More…]

by 06/08/2020 Comments are Disabled South Asia
U.S. military is making plans for complete Afghan withdrawal before the next election

U.S. military is making plans for complete Afghan withdrawal before the next election

U.S. Defense Department officials are reportedly planning to brief President Donald Trump on several options to withdraw all U.S. troops from Afghanistan, that include an option to pull them out before the 2020 U.S. presidential election in November. Trump has expressed a desire to end the U.S.’s wars throughout the course of his presidency. In 2019, he abruptly ordered the[Read More…]

by 27/05/2020 Comments are Disabled World
A Call From Afghanistan for Greta Thunberg…

A Call From Afghanistan for Greta Thunberg…

 …to highlight our interconnected need for renewable energy, a fairer economic system and the abolition of war. An annual youth peace conference organized by the Afghan Peace Volunteers last year. BEYOND HEALTHCARE Hakim spent two years in Quetta before moving to Afghanistan’s Bamiyan province as a medical specialist with an international NGO. But as he visited and lived in remote[Read More…]

by 13/03/2020 Comments are Disabled World
Afghan National army (ANA) soldiers line up during military training in  Badakhshan province, Afghanistan, on May 8, 2016 (Photo by Mohammad Sharif Shayeq/NurPhoto) *** Please Use Credit from Credit Field ***

Afghan troops say Taliban are brothers and war is “not really our fight.”

The world is waiting anxiously to see whether the U.S. and Afghan governments and the Taliban will agree to a one-week truce that could set the stage for a “permanent and comprehensive” ceasefire and a withdrawal of U.S. and other foreign occupation forces from Afghanistan. Could the talks be for real this time, or will they turn out to be just another smokescreen for[Read More…]

by 17/02/2020 Comments are Disabled World
Kathy Kelly and Maya Evans walk with children at the Chamin-E-Babrak refugee camp in Kabul, Afghanistan, January 2014. (Abdulhai Darya)

An eyewitness to the horrors of the US ‘forever wars’ speaks out

The 2003 “shock and awe” bombing of Iraq had finally stopped. From the balcony of my room in Baghdad’s Al Fanar Hotel, I watched U.S. Marines moving between their jeeps, armored personnel carriers, and Humvees. They had occupied the street immediately in front of the small, family-owned hotel where our Iraq Peace Team had been living for the past six[Read More…]

by 04/01/2020 Comments are Disabled World
Gul Mohammad Jamshadi, left, solders parts to a motherboard. Mohammad Haidary, wearing a hat, works to his left.

Work of Necessity, Work of Choice

At age 11, Saabir Gulmadin began chopping wood to support his family. Now 18, he earns about $1.50 US (120 Afghanis) for every 56 kg of wood he splits. It takes him 2 to 3 hours. “Is the work hard on your body?” I ask. “Ohhh, yes,” he says, without hesitation. “Where does it hurt?” Saabir raises his right hand[Read More…]

by 03/01/2020 Comments are Disabled World
From Kabul: Youth on the Road to Peace

From Kabul: Youth on the Road to Peace

In September 2019, facing everyday dangers of the war and under constant pressure to view those from other tribes as enemies, young people from each of Afghanistan’s 34 provinces gathered for a three day “On the Road to Peace” conference in Kabul. 30th September 2019 / 8th Mezan 1398 Despite the violent crises which we human beings have created for[Read More…]

by 06/10/2019 Comments are Disabled World
Arriving in wheelchairs to receive duvets/ Photo credits:  Dr. Hakim

The Wounds of War in Afghanistan

Recovering from a broken hip, peace activist Kathy Kelly reflects on her experiences with people disabled and traumatized by war. Its economy gutted by war, Afghanistan’s largest cash crop remains opium. Yet farmers there do grow other crops for export. Villagers in the Wazir Tangi area of Nangarhar province, for example, cultivate pine nuts. As a precaution, this year at[Read More…]

by 28/09/2019 Comments are Disabled World
 Why Ending the Afghan War Won’t End the Killing

 Why Ending the Afghan War Won’t End the Killing

I’ve never been to Afghanistan, but I am the mother of two young children. So when I imagine what life must be like there after 18 years of war, my mind conjures up the children most vividly — the ones who have been affected by the conflict — and their parents. I think of the 12-year-old boy who was carrying water to[Read More…]

by 19/09/2019 Comments are Disabled Imperialism
A Morning in Afghanistan

A Morning in Afghanistan

Amidst political posturing, aerial terrorism and street bombings, Afghan citizens pursue their daily work toward peace. On a very warm September morning in Kabul, several dozen men, women, and children sit on the carpeted floor of a room at the Afghan Peace Volunteers’ Borderfree Center. The women cluster together. All wear burqas, but because of the heat they push the[Read More…]

by 12/09/2019 Comments are Disabled World
 Reflections on “Peace” in Afghanistan – Leaving a Misguided War and Choosing Not to Look Back

 Reflections on “Peace” in Afghanistan – Leaving a Misguided War and Choosing Not to Look Back

When the conflict that the Vietnamese refer to as the American War ended in April 1975, I was a U.S. Army captain attending a course at Fort Knox, Kentucky. In those days, the student body at any of our Army’s myriad schools typically included officers from the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN). Since ARVN’s founding two decades earlier,[Read More…]

by 10/09/2019 Comments are Disabled Imperialism
Inevitable Withdrawal: The US-Taliban Deal

Inevitable Withdrawal: The US-Taliban Deal

It took gallons and flagons of blood, but it eventuated, a squeeze of history into a parchment of possibility: the Taliban eventually pushed the sole superpower on this expiring earth to a deal of some consequence.  (The stress is on the some – the consequence is almost always unknown.)  “In principle, on paper, yes we have reached an agreement,” claimed[Read More…]

by 04/09/2019 Comments are Disabled World
A new study from Brown University's Costs of War Project found that the U.S. "War on Terror" has killed half a million people in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. (Photo: Spc. Phillip McTaggart/Flickr/cc)

Could Donald Trump End the Afghan War?

Could Donald Trump end the Afghan war someday? I don’t know if such a possibility has been on your mind, but it’s certainly been on the mind of this retired U.S. Army major who fought in that land so long ago. And here’s the context in which I’ve been thinking about that very possibility. Back in the previous century, it[Read More…]

by 29/07/2019 1 comment Imperialism
In Afghanistan, We Have Three Dreams

In Afghanistan, We Have Three Dreams

By Dr Hakim Young and the Afghan Peace Volunteers Dear fellow human beings, Some of us have wondered, “Are people today too disconnected and frantic to calm down, in order to solve global challenges together? Are we so polarized and self-absorbed that we cannot stop judging one another or insisting on our partisan ways?” In Kabul, our thoughts and feelings[Read More…]

by 05/07/2019 Comments are Disabled World
What it Really Takes to Secure Peace in Afghanistan

What it Really Takes to Secure Peace in Afghanistan

Constant military surveillance of Afghans yields almost no real intelligence about the problems they face each day. An unusual group of volunteers uses a far different approach. Hossein, a member of the Afghan Peace Volunteers, (APV), which hosted my recent visit to Afghanistan, rolled up his sleeve to show me a still-healing three-inch wound. Thieves had broken into his family[Read More…]

by 14/02/2019 1 comment World
PPM members meet Afghan Peace Volunteers outside UK Embassy in Kabul/
photo credit Dr Hakim

Defying War and Defining Peace in Afghanistan 

On January 27th, 2019, the Taliban and the U.S. government each publicly stated  acceptance, in principle, of a draft framework for ongoing negotiations that could culminate in a peace deal to end a two-decade war in Afghanistan. As we learn more about the negotiations, it’s important to remember others working toward dialogue and negotiation in Afghanistan. Troublingly, women’s rights leaders[Read More…]

by 29/01/2019 1 comment World
Afghanistan Pullout: Culmination of America’s Longest War

Afghanistan Pullout: Culmination of America’s Longest War

On Saturday, January 26, Reuters reported [1] that Taliban officials said the US negotiators agreed on a draft peace pact setting out the withdrawal of American troops from Afghanistan within 18 months, potentially ending the United States longest war. Confirming the news, New York Times reported [2] on Monday, January 28, that the US chief negotiator Zalmay Khalilzad stated the[Read More…]

by 29/01/2019 1 comment Imperialism
A new study from Brown University's Costs of War Project found that the U.S. "War on Terror" has killed half a million people in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. (Photo: Spc. Phillip McTaggart/Flickr/cc)

“The Bleeding Wound”- Afghanistan and the Implosion of America

As I approach 75, I’m having a commonplace experience for my age. I live with a brain that’s beginning to dump previously secure memories — names, the contents of books I read long ago (or all too recently), events, whatever. If you’re of a certain age yourself, you know the story. Recently, however, I realized that this experience of loss,[Read More…]

by 24/01/2019 Comments are Disabled World
Children in refugee camp

Where Can the Anger Go?

Writing from Kabul, Carolyn Coe describes experiences of frustration, outbreaks of rage and efforts to cope. Kabul–At a busy four-way intersection in the northwestern part of Kabul, traffic is stuck. There is no traffic signal, and cars are threaded through one another like a woven rug. A passenger car is in front of our taxi. The driver, with two children[Read More…]

by 23/12/2018 1 comment World
A Not-So-Splendid Caste:  The Hypocrisy of the Bono-rati

A Not-So-Splendid Caste:  The Hypocrisy of the Bono-rati

  On the advice of loved ones—and against my better instincts- I attended an event at Seattle University, October 27th, featuring noted author Khaled Hosseini.  He was accompanied by Razia Jan, founder of Razia’s Ray of Hope. On the surface, such an event would seem not only worthwhile but uplifting.  After all, both of the speakers are of Afghan origin,[Read More…]

by 30/10/2018 Comments are Disabled Imperialism
Nonviolent Afghans Bring a Breath of Fresh Air

Nonviolent Afghans Bring a Breath of Fresh Air

Grade 12th Afghan student Jamila Omary asked, “Do you have any plans to arm yourselves, because of the threats and dangers you have faced?” Iqbal Khyber answered, “No. Though it is easy to buy weapons today, arming ourselves will worsen the war. Weapons will make us less secure.” What a breath of fresh air in the stench of war-as-usual! Iqbal[Read More…]

by 17/10/2018 1 comment World
The APVs, the PPM and the people want an end to war. Photo by Dr Hakim

In Afghanistan, our need to rethink the institution of war

It’s frustrating that whereas all human beings wish to live meaningful lives, we seem helpless in the face of a few individuals waging wars and exploiting our world. But we can each do something about this insensible status quo, as ordinary folk of the People’s Peace Movement ( PPM )show us by taking one barefoot-step at a time, traveling to[Read More…]

by 21/08/2018 1 comment World
Can Afghans convince us that the method of war isn’t effective?

Can Afghans convince us that the method of war isn’t effective?

Can Afghans convince us that the method of war doesn’t work? If we’re still quietly hoping that wars would end and people all over the world would get along peacefully, the dreams and demands of the Helmand Peace Convoy would give us courage and evidence. When Amanullah Khateb joined the Convoy, now called the People’s Peace Movement (PPM), he didn’t[Read More…]

by 07/08/2018 2 comments Imperialism
Fought to the Table: Talks with the Taliban

Fought to the Table: Talks with the Taliban

“Attempting to control rural areas in Afghanistan always eventually ends up boiling down to personal survival.” Evan McAllister, former Marine staff sergeant, New York Times, July 28, 2018 It genuinely doesn’t matter how the security boffins within the Pentagon frame it: the Taliban have fought the United States, through sheer will of force and mania, to the negotiating table –[Read More…]

by 05/08/2018 2 comments World
Girls and mothers, waiting for their duvets, in Kabul Photo credit: Dr. Hakim

On Purpose, In Kabul

Writing this week for the Chicago Tribune, Steve Chapman called a U.S. Government report on the war in Afghanistan “a chronicle of futility.” “The Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction” report says the U.S. spent large sums “in search of quick gains” in regional stabilization – but these instead “exacerbated conflicts, enabled corruption and bolstered support for insurgents.” “In short,” says[Read More…]

by 26/06/2018 2 comments World
Digging Deeper

Digging Deeper

Here in Kabul in early June, outside the home of several Afghan Peace Volunteers, a large drilling machine is parked on what was once a lovely garden. To this now muddy patch, workers will soon arrive for another noisy, dusty day of digging for water. The well dried up a week ago. As of today, the household has no water. Ongoing[Read More…]

by 07/06/2018 1 comment World
Mike Ferner photo of Kabul 12-24-2010

Welcome To Kabul

  December 31, 2017: It is a dream come true being back among friends in Kabul! Streams of dented Toyotas (They are all Toyotas!) with windscreens cracked like bolts of lightning still jockey for position on roads where traffic lights and common sense hold little sway. Carts of vegetables drawn by donkeys or dragged by men without dreams continue clotting the already stuttering traffic,[Read More…]

by 02/01/2018 1 comment World
Mursal interacts with her teacher Naser during a Friday afternoon Bridge class, a class to encourage soon-to-be Street Kid School graduates to volunteer at the Borderfree Centre. Photo credit: Carolyn Coe

Stepping Stones To Change

  Amrullah has a small frame and a soft voice. He used to have a reputation as a fighter and would fight with the rich kids. He’d get angry because they had nicer clothes. By fighting, he wanted to show his power. But now, at age 11, he believes that fighting is bad. When he sees those same boys, he[Read More…]

by 26/12/2017 Comments are Disabled World
An Escalating Afghan Crisis Of ‘Profit’ Over ‘Life’

An Escalating Afghan Crisis Of ‘Profit’ Over ‘Life’

Surkh Gul with her daughter. Photo by Dr Hakim “My family’s water well has dried up,” 18-year-old Surkh Gul said. “Ours too,” echoed 13-year-old Inaam. A distressed Surkh Gul lamented, “We have to fetch water from the public well along the main road, but that water is muddy, not fit for drinking. I get bottled water for my two-year-old daughter.[Read More…]

by 14/11/2017 1 comment World
Dr.Najib: A Sketch of A Man And A Country

Dr.Najib: A Sketch of A Man And A Country

  (ROME) When in 1978 the 31-year old Afghan Communist politician-activist, Mohammad Najibullah, arrived in Tehran, “exiled” to neighboring Iran as Afghanistan’s Ambassador, I had just left Iran where I had worked throughout the year of 1977. Najibullah’s political party, the People’s Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA) had come to power in Kabul in April, 1978 in what is known[Read More…]

by 08/10/2017 3 comments World
Inaam, whose brother, Rahman, signed up to be a soldier as there were no other viable jobs

Damn, I Don’t Want Rahman To End Up Being Killed

Sultan, Ali’s brother, was killed in August 2016. Hussein, Bismillah’s uncle, was killed in April 2017. I don’t want Rahman, Inaam’s brother, to end up being killed. Rahman is now training to be a soldier. Both Sultan and Hussein were Afghan soldiers in their twenties. They joined the army because there were no other viable jobs available. Their families needed[Read More…]

by 04/10/2017 1 comment World
Afghanistan Again? The American Military’s Repetition-Compulsion Complex

Afghanistan Again? The American Military’s Repetition-Compulsion Complex

  Here we go again! Years after most Americans forgot about the longest warthis country ever fought, American soldiers are again being deployed to Afghanistan. For almost 16 years now, at the command of three presidents and a sadly forgettable succession of generals, they have gone round and round like so many motorists trapped on a rotary with no exit. This time their[Read More…]

by 20/09/2017 1 comment Imperialism
Italian troops took over ancient Citadel in Herat City

The People of Afghanistan Have Had Truly Enough of Western Imperialist Barbarism

Interview with ANDRE VLTCHEK by ALESSANDRO BIANCCHI, Chief Editor of Anti-Diplomatico 1) AB: The geographic location of Afghanistan has always occupied a central role. The April peace talks between Afghanistan, India, Pakistan, Russia and China seemed to have put an end to the persistent and dominant American presence in the country. What’s your opinion? AV: What you have mentioned is extremely important,[Read More…]

by 12/09/2017 Comments are Disabled Imperialism
“We are Killing Terrorists” And “Attack We Will”- Trump’s Most Vicious Racist Rant

“We are Killing Terrorists” And “Attack We Will”- Trump’s Most Vicious Racist Rant

  On Monday, August 21, President Donald Trump delivered a prime-time speech almost shocking in its ordinariness. It was such an address as either of his immediate predecessors, George W. Bush or Barack Obama, could easily have given over the previous decade and a half. While hinting at nebulous new strategies and ill-defined new metrics to measure success, President Trump[Read More…]

by 29/08/2017 Comments are Disabled Imperialism
How Life Got Intolerable For Ghulam’s Mother And His Afghan Family

How Life Got Intolerable For Ghulam’s Mother And His Afghan Family

    Ghulam ( second from left ) working on our community’s greenhouse, together with Zek, Khamad and Ali Ali, Zekerullah, Khamad and I miss Ghulam and his family. We feel sad that life in Afghanistan had finally become too burdensome for them. They are now Afghan refugees in Iran. We have known Ghulam for many years, Ali and Ghulam[Read More…]

by 23/08/2017 1 comment World
The Long, Long Story: “Principled Realism”, Trump And Afghanistan

The Long, Long Story: “Principled Realism”, Trump And Afghanistan

The story continues with dispiriting relentlessness.  The remark by Samuel Beckett in The Unnamable comes to mind: “I can’t go on.  I’ll go on.”  With the sense of incapacity about going on, yet doing so with a drone’s dedicated commitment, President Donald Trump did what US Presidents have done since George W. Bush: commit.  Commit, that is, to the mission;[Read More…]

by 23/08/2017 1 comment Imperialism
Trump Gives Military Green Light To Escalate Afghanistan War

Trump Gives Military Green Light To Escalate Afghanistan War

President Donald Trump announced a major escalation of the US war in Afghanistan in a nationally televised speech Monday night, although he gave no details either about the number of additional troops that will be sent or the extent or duration of the military commitment. Trump also made menacing threats against Pakistan in remarks clearly crafted in close coordination with[Read More…]

by 22/08/2017 1 comment Imperialism
Wreckage of Soviet tank

Afghanistan Is Right Here! Lies, Myths And Legends

Text and Photos: Andre Vltchek It often appears that “true Afghanistan” is not here in Kabuland not in Jalalabad or Heart either; not in the ancient villages, which anxiously cling to the steep mountainsides. Many foreigners and even Afghans are now convinced that the “true” Afghanistan is only what is being shown on the television screens,depicted in magazines, or what[Read More…]

by 02/08/2017 1 comment Imperialism
10-year-old Afghan Street Kid Mubasir smiles despite his difficulties

What Does War Generate?

  She read to us. “The Works of Mercy:  Feed the hungry; Give drink to the thirsty; Clothe the naked; Visit the imprisoned; Care for the sick; Bury the dead.” And then she read: “The Works of War: Destroy crops and land; Seize food supplies; Destroy homes; Scatter families; Contaminate water; Imprison dissenters; Inflict wounds, burns; Kill the living.” The following[Read More…]

by 04/07/2017 1 comment World
Feed The Hungry, Treat The Sick: A Crucial Training

Feed The Hungry, Treat The Sick: A Crucial Training

  On June 15, 2017, theNew York Times reported that the government of Saudi Arabia aims to ease the concerns of some U.S. legislators over U.S. weapon sales to Saudi Arabia. The Saudis plan to engage in“a $750 million multiyear training program through the American military to help prevent the accidental killing of civilians in the Saudi-led air campaign against[Read More…]

by 16/06/2017 1 comment Imperialism
Afghanistan: From Soviet Occupation To American ‘Liberation’

Afghanistan: From Soviet Occupation To American ‘Liberation’

During the election campaign of 2008 before he was elected as the president, Barack Obama made an artificial distinction between the “just war” in Afghanistan and the unjust war in Iraq. In accordance with the flawed distinction, he pledged that he would withdraw American troops stationed in Iraq. The unilateral intervention in Iraq by the Bush Administration was highly unpopular[Read More…]

by 03/06/2017 2 comments World
From Afghanistan To My #Mother!, And The Child In Everyone

From Afghanistan To My #Mother!, And The Child In Everyone

Dear mom and fellow members of the human family, I love my 77-year-old frugal, hardworking, self-sacrificial Han Chinese Singaporean mother, so when Trump’s military/government dropped what they nicknamed the ‘Mother of All Bombs’ ( MOAB ) on Achin District in Afghanistan, I knew I had to do something about this psycho-social disease of ‘war’. I mean, my mom is nothing[Read More…]

by 25/05/2017 1 comment World
‘Butcher of Kabul’ Returns To Kabul In An Afghan Peace Deal

‘Butcher of Kabul’ Returns To Kabul In An Afghan Peace Deal

  Lord Palmerston, the 19th century British Prime Minister, has famously said: “The Great Britain has no friends, no enemies, but only interests.” It was rephrased by Henry Kissinger as “America has no permanent friends or enemies, only interests.” This applies to current Afghan politics where Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, a former anti-Soviet “mujahideen” commander, arrived in the capital on Thursday (May[Read More…]

by 05/05/2017 2 comments World
America’s Longest War Drags On In Afghanistan

America’s Longest War Drags On In Afghanistan

The US national security advisor, Lieutenant General H.R. McMaster, was in Afghanistan over the weekend, speaking with President Ashraf Ghani and General John Nicholson, the US military commander in the country. The aim of the talks, the Military Times reported prior to McMaster’s arrival in Kabul, was to “assess whether more military personnel are needed to break the stalemate there.”[Read More…]

by 19/04/2017 1 comment Imperialism
The Hazara Dilemma: Ghani In Australia

The Hazara Dilemma: Ghani In Australia

Australian government officials are at it again, and the visit by President Ashaf Ghani to Canberra on Sunday piqued interest amongst various members of the Afghan community concerned about the next innovation in cruelty practiced by Canberra. If there is something exceptional in the otherwise dreary annals of Australian policy making in recent years, repelling unwanted refugees and asylum seekers[Read More…]

by 04/04/2017 1 comment World
Explosion in District 6

Afghanistan: Notes From A Broken Land

WINTER It is now winter in Kabul, end of February 2017. At night the temperature gets near zero. The mountains surrounding the city are covered by snow. It feels much chillier than it really is. Soon it will be 16 years since the US/UK invasion of the country, and 16 years since the Bonn Conference, during which Hamid Karzai was[Read More…]

by 14/03/2017 1 comment World
Ghulam Reza makes a toy for himself

Portraits From Kabul

Ghulam Reza often plays at the Borderfree Centre. He’s 5 years, 3 mos. On Saturday, he was filling an empty chips bag with water, tying off the top, and pushing it along, atop a roof tile. Zarghuna and I tried asking if it was a ship or a truck, but he generally ignored us and kept on playing quietly. Near[Read More…]

by 28/12/2016 1 comment World
mothers and children inside a Kabul refugee camp Photo credit: Henrietta Cullinan

Human Rights Day, A Call To Care

December 10th marks the U.N. Human Rights Day, celebrating and upholding the indispensable and crucial declaration of universal human rights.On the eve of this event, I visited a refugee camp housing 700 families in Kabul. Conditions in refugee camps can be deplorable, intolerable. Here, the situation is best described as surreal. As I approach the entrance to the camp with my friends[Read More…]

by 10/12/2016 1 comment Human Rights, World
Jamila, age 11, holds a neighbor’s newborn. Photo credit: Henrietta Cullinan

See How We Live

  Here in Kabul, I’m generally an early riser at the home of the Afghan Peace Volunteers, but I’m seldom alone. Facing exams, my young friends awaken early and then stay up late to study. Before sunrise this morning, eighteen year old Ghulamai sits in the kitchen, poring over his textbook. His efforts have made him number one in his[Read More…]

by 08/12/2016 2 comments World
Where To Turn?

Where To Turn?

In July 1941, Albert Einstein, ten months a US citizen, wrote Eleanor Roosevelt asking her, as First Lady, to raise with the president the matter of lifting bureaucratic hurdles so that Jewish refugees threatened by Hitler’s final solution could be granted entry into the U.S. “I know of no-one else to whom to turn for help,” he wrote. But the U.S. government[Read More…]

by 12/11/2016 2 comments World
Can USA Be Charged For War Crimes After Recent Air Strikes In Afghanistan?

Can USA Be Charged For War Crimes After Recent Air Strikes In Afghanistan?

US air strikes are common in the Afghanistan where these are used to eliminate the suspected Taliban cadres. These are supported by the Afghan government though several politicians including the former President Hamid Karzai opposes such attacks. US in a similar such strikes killed more than 30 civilians on Thursday who were innocents and it is assumed had no relations[Read More…]

by 07/11/2016 1 comment Imperialism
Covering, And Exposing, Atrocity: Australian Commandos Come Forward

Covering, And Exposing, Atrocity: Australian Commandos Come Forward

Kevin Frost, a special forces sergeant in the Australian Army, has done something unusual. He wishes, even demands, to be tried for his role behind the summary execution of an Afghan prisoner in his captivity during a tour of the country. From Frost came a statement to an inquiry digging through allegations of war crimes by Australian troops that took[Read More…]

by 16/10/2016 1 comment Human Rights
The Cant Of The Powerful: Killing People To Save Them

The Cant Of The Powerful: Killing People To Save Them

Friday, October 7 went by quietly unnoticed by major US media. It was the 15th anniversary of the war in Afghanistan — a war with no foreseeable end in sight. The number of troops due to remain in Afghanistan has been raised 50 percent to 8400. Drones based in Pakistan continue to play their deadly role. On the anniversary date,[Read More…]

by 13/10/2016 1 comment Imperialism
15 Years Of War On Terror: US Follies And Sufferings

15 Years Of War On Terror: US Follies And Sufferings

Today completes the fifteen years of US entry in Afghanistan. It was on 7th October 2001 when US had entered the Afghanistan when it declared that US was attacked by the terrorists and war on terror was now to be carried on. US was attacked on 11 September 2001 and this was attack on its existence. ‘At 8:46 on the[Read More…]

Photo Essay: Beyond Afghan And Human Ethnicities

Photo Essay: Beyond Afghan And Human Ethnicities

Watch Shy Bismillah Finds Friends from 34 Afghan Provinces   From top left clockwise: Pashtun – Barath, Tajik – Malik, Uzbek – Habib, Hazara – Nemat, Afghans – All, Human Family Members – All “1948?” Habib remarked at how long it had taken for the human family to agree in writing that “all human beings ( including himself, Barath, Malik,[Read More…]

by 22/09/2016 1 comment World
Photo Essay: An Afghan Outing And River Heals Us

Photo Essay: An Afghan Outing And River Heals Us

This was not a typical festive ‘first world’ outing, as its need and idea arose not from leisure, but from trauma. Recently, Hadisa was broken after an ‘endless’ night of crouching nervously in the dark of her University dormitory, while bomb blasts and gunshots were ending precious lives only a hair’s breath away. Nemat, in a safe space which softened[Read More…]

by 21/09/2016 1 comment World