100 posts
Terrorism and the Taliban
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By Munir Akram The cold-blooded shooting of Malala Yousufzai, the girls’ rights activist, by a Taliban hit ma...
Great news about Malala!
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From Nick Lowles of Hope Not Hate: The BBC has just announced that Malala Yousafzai has stood up for the first time since being shot in the head by the Taliban. The 14-year-old was targeted after she led a campaign for girls to be educated. This is...
At least six non-NATO countries have agreed to support Alliance’s new mission in Afghanistan since 2015
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NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen reaffirmed a new NATO led mission in Afghanistan beginning in 2015, reported Silk Road Newsline. READ MORE...
NATO Defence Ministers make progress on capabilities, planning for new Afghan mission
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video NATO Defence Ministers took stock of progress in improving Allied defence capabilities and endorsed the first...
Dmitry Salamatin: Ukraine will contribute to the creation of safe Afghanistan
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Today in Brussels, chaired by NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen, was held the meeting of the North Atlantic Council with countries - contributors to the operation of the International Security Assistance Force in the Islamic Republic...
What will the future of Afghanistan and Iraq be?
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Last December we saw the total withdrawal of the American troops from Iraq and it is estimated that by the end of 2014 they will leave Afghanistan as well. And that will hopefully end America's campaign on terror, on foreign territories at least. Wel...
Obama Lionized by the NYT for "Cutting Generals Entirely Out" of Afghanistan Strategy-Making
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The aide told [President Obama] that he believed military leaders had agreed to the tight [Afghanistan] schedule to begin withdrawing those troops just 18 months later only because they thought they could persuade an inexperienced president to gra...
The “moderate” Taliban give an interview to their UK mouthpiece
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The New Statesman has long been telling us that the Afghan war is “unwinnable” and that a Taliban victory is inevitable: Take this, from the (print edition) of 17 August 2009, for instance: Our military presence in Afghanistan is part...
Kazakhstan to play most active role in supporting reverse transit of ISAF forces from Afghanistan
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Kazakhstan will play “the most active role” in supporting reverse transit of the U.S. and NATO forces from Afghanistan, according to President Nazarbayev’s advisor for political affairs, Ermukhamet Ertysbayev. READ MORE...
NATO and Afghanistan
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In advance of the NATO summit meeting on Afghanistan, American officials are claiming real progress in the fight against the Taliban. “Every day we’re gaining traction,” Gen. John Allen, the top commander in Afghanistan, told report...
Afghanistan is Key to India’s Iranian Connection
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Washington grumbles about the Indian relationship with Iran, but the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan leaves New Delhi little choice The striking juxtaposition this week in New Delhi is a nice illustration of how Tehran has become a complicating fact...
Afghanistan: what’s gone right, what’s gone wrong
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When the Taliban was ousted in 2001, there were seeds of hope across the country. The people of Afghanistan, weary from their dark past, embarked on a bright venture of nation and state building. They hoped for prosperity, freedom, and peace. The pre...
BREAKING: Massive Attack on NATO's Kabul HQ By Waves of Taliban Suicide Bombers
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According to Danish news reports (the secretary general of NATO, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, is Danish), including Berlingske Tidende, NATO's headquarters in Kabul are under a major attack, with the Taliban issuing a statement that suicide bombers are inv...
Humanitarianism in Pakistan and Afghanistan
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January 2011 edition of the Humanitarian Policy Group (ODI) magazine Humanitarian Exchange is focused on humanitarian action in Pakistan and Afghanistan: http://www.odihpn.org/documents%5Chumanitarianexchange049.pdf...
Let addicts die
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A magnificently un-pc posting from Richard North about the heroin supply crisis caused in part by succesful operations in Afghanistan.Then, the same paper has Peter Preston telling us that "It's braver to quit Afghanistan now," arguing that if the da...
Remembrance, Afghanistan and rethinking defence
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Several of us in the London office have just observed the two minutes of silence that is traditional in Britain at 1100 on every November 11th, in memory of the country’s war dead. Just a couple ofRead more…...
The Illusion of Realism
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Recently Time published a special issue on Afghanistan that highlighted the human cost of the Taliban. Its front cover displayed a picture of a woman who’d had her nose and ears cut off by the Taliban for running from domestic violence. The...
More Than Dutch Courage in Afghanistan
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As the old C-130 Hercules transport plane took off from Tarin Kowt airfield in Uruzgan, I glimpsed a last view of the province that back in 2001 had witnessed the first Pashtun rebellion against the Taliban. This rugged airstrip was an unlikely place...
Two Sets of Dominoes
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My colleague Niels Annen has given us the benefit of his own extensive experience in Afghanistan to offer a very useful perspective on the Dutch withdrawal. Niels’ concerns about whether the withdrawal signals the unraveling of the coalition in...
Now Pentagon angry with Wikileaks
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Pentagon orders Wikileaks to delete classified documents from Boing Boing by Rob Beschizza In a briefing at the Defense Department, Pentagon Spokesman Geoff Morrell ordered Wikileaks to remove classified documents and return them to the U.S. governme...
“Afghanistan is not Sweden”???
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I’ve been following with slight misapprehension the nervous reactions of some US bloggers and commentators on the Wikileaks scandal that involved the publication of thousands of US military confidential documents on the Internet. One particular pos...
Clap harder, dammit!
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So, the West (defined today as the US and it's vassal military states - called...
Thousands of Classified Reports on the Afghanistan War Leaked
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An extensive series of previously classified reports on the Afghanistan war effort titled the Afghan War Diary (AWD) has been made public by the website WikiLeaks. The NYT, Guardian and Der Spiegel were leaked the reports several weeks ago....
Wikileaks läcker hemliga Afghanistan-dokument
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Sajten Wikileaks har i samarbete med New York Times, The Guardian & Der Spiegel släppt ett stort antal hemliga amerikanska dokument, en krigsdagbok från Afghanistan. Krigsdagboken berättar en dyster historia om hundratals civila offer och et...
antropologi.info asks “The return of colonial anthropology?/ anthro roundup
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The return of colonial anthropology? from antropologi.info – anthropology in the news blog by Lorenz “A dysfunctional ethnic and tribal brawl has been the norm in Afghanistan for centuries. Afghanistan is a mess. ” Who said that? A frustrat...
Morning Brief (21-7)
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Afghanistan donor conference in Kabul. The New York Times writes: The most concrete commitment was a promise to increase to 50 percent the proportion of international development funds to be disbursed through Afghanistan’s own budgeting process, a...
Karzai Reaffirms 2014 Goal For Afghan-Led Security
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President Hamid Karzai on Tuesday reaffirmed his commitment for Afghan police and soldiers to take charge of security nationwide by 2014 and urged his international backers to distribute more of their development aid through the government. R...
What is good for the Goose
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Q. What has Afghanistan got that the UK doesn't?A) The ability to set its own trade rules.Our Foriegn Minister Cathy Ashton is in the land of the empowered Burka wearer, Afghanistan where she is attending some conference.The conference, entitled, Kab...
Memo from Liam Fox to the Taliban
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Dear Colleagues, The new, more realistic, UK administration understands that your traditional values are appropriate for Afghanistan and that so-called “liberal” and “democratic” values – particularly with regard to the...
McChrystal’s Replacement Marks the End of the ‘Big Macs’ in Afghanistan
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In a spectacular move President Obama fired General Stanley McChrystal after the Rolling Stone magazine broke a story reporting his staff’s and his own disrespectful remarks about the president and his national security team. The incident is not on...
Why we are in Afghanistan
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While we're being told that our governments are broke and must reduce payments to pensioners,...
The snark heard round the world
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It’s a strange turn of events when some snarky personal attacks made in Rolling Stone magazine can have an explosive worldwide effect that will change the course of history. But that is what has unfolded this week as Barack Obama has been forced to...
Morning Brief (25-6)
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Obama’s Afghan strategy not working, says the Economist: Since November, when Mr Obama promised 30,000 more of his country’s soldiers to the campaign, little has gone right. General McChrystal’s plan was for a “surge” that would seize t...
The Runaway Commander: Opportunities & Risks Inherent in McChrystal’s Dismissal
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President Barack Obama Wednesday fired his own chosen field commander for Afghanistan, General Stanley McChrystal, and replaced him with McChrystal’s boss in the military chain of command, General David Petraeus. Obama was right to fire McChrysta...
Fool's Errand
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So McChrystal is out, Petraeus in. What difference does it make? There was some discussion...
US, France and Germany: Divisions and Lack of Professionalism Everywhere
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We all need more team spirit. Obama's Afghanistan team is in disarray. Their egos seem to be as bloated as the ego's in the French soccer team. While President Obama is angry with McChrystal's frank comments and perhaps insubordination, President Sa...
Is NATO to Blame for Russia's Afghan Heroin Problem?
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It had to be one of the weirdest displays the Russian president had ever seen. Laid out on a table were a mound of walnuts, a chess set, an old tire and an anatomically correct dummy — all stuffed with little baggies of imitation heroin. Tit...
Refugee week and our shameful treatment of Afghan kids
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Some things simply make you ashamed to be British: “The Government’s decision to fast-track the deportation of child and adolescent Afghans from Britain to Afghanistan is an outrage against public decency and elementary human rights. R...
Tories will leave Afghan girls to their fate
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In an pronouncement that will surely bring joy to the hearts of the Stop The War Coalition and other Taliban supporters, trad-right Tory Liam Fox has made it clear that the new Lib Dem-Tory government doesn’t give a toss about Afghan women a...
Afghanistan; our man Karzai
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It is now widely accepted that the surge is only a means to an end: the end to establish a stable society in Afghanistan. This is a mammoth task requiring honest, fair leadership. The hopes of America and the West are pinned on President Hamid Ka...
Afghanistan in Sixteen Characters
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“By May 1928 the basic principles of guerilla warfare…had already been evolved; that is, the sixteen-character formula: The enemy advances, we retreat; the enemy camps, we harass; the enemy tires, we attack; the enemy retreats, we pursue.”...
Denmark Shows How to Get Support for Afghanistan
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While the Dutch government broke up over the war in Afghanistan, the Danish establishment seems to be very unified and serves as "an unlikely example of how to maintain public support for the war" writes the Wall Street Journal (HT: Atlanti...
Taliban using Human Shields
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Both NATO and Afghan commanders have made statements that the Taliban are using civilians as human shields in Marjah (see this Guardian report ). The Afghan government and ISAF, meanwhile, are firmly focused on protecting the civilian populatio...
