Afghanistan

NOVANEWSProletarian issue 47 (April 2012) With time running out for imperialism’s bloody Afghan adventure, Britain and the United States are desperately seeking to conclude last-minute deals with a host of central Asian countries in a bid to extricate themselves (and billions of dollars’ worth of military equipment) from their Afghan nightmare.   Under intense pressure from the forces of national liberation inside Afghanistan, Britain and America are well aware that their time there is coming to an end. In the decade that has passed since Nato’s storm-troopers crash-landed into the country, the entire imperialist system has slipped further into economic crisis. And as the crisis deepens, more pressing objectives are taking attention away from the losing battle of Afgh...

NOVANEWS ‘Americans ashamed of troops’ atrocities in Afghanistan’ By Press TV US Bureau “These last three incidents and in particular, the killing of 18 –which has been a more of a shock in the United States than anyone is aware– is that Americans are so ashamed. We have almost no way of dealing with this; we cannot understand what happened. We reached to a point where we have very little faith in our own troops [that] we cannot believe that people in Afghanistan are going to have any faith and trust either.” YouTube  Tehran (Press TV)  The US-led NATO mission in Afghanistan says Afghan army troops’ attacks on its personnel are having “an out-of-proportion effect” on the Western coalition forces’ morale. The NATO forces spokesman Brigadier General Carsten Jacobson says such killings h...

NOVANEWS by Stephen Lendman   If it’s happening, it’s not reported. Washington wants no mention or suggestion of what plagued Vietnam. More on that below. Writing about the Russian Revolution, Leon Trotsky said: “The moral condition of the army was hopeless. You might describe it by saying the army as an army no longer existed. Defeats, retreats, and the rottenness of the ruling class had utterly undermined the troops.” War in Vietnam affected US soldiers that way. Until 1967, order was well maintained. After Tet in late January/February 1968, things changed. Mutinies forced the Pentagon to disguise them with language like “combat refusal.” Soldiers disobeyed orders. Most were search and destroy missions. They were put in harms way against formidable enemies. At times, entire c...

NOVANEWS Government Should Target Abusers, Not Victims A prisoner covers her face while sitting outside a room that she shares with 15 other women prisoners in March 2010. Women in Afghanistan face serious barriers to obtaining custody of their children in the event of a divorce. Several women told Human Rights Watch that when they left prison they would have to choose between returning to an abusive husband with custody of their children or never seeing their children again. Most planned to return to their husbands. © 2010 Farzana Wahidy RELATED MATERIALS: “I Had To Run Away” MORE COVERAGE: BBC: Hundreds of Afghan women jailed for 'moral crimes' Afghanistan: Moral Crimes It is shocking that 10 years after the overthrow of t...

NOVANEWS After 9/11, the West invaded Afghanistan under the guise of eradicating terrorism and helping its poor people. Years later,this is our legacy: The Afghan government should release the approximately 400 women and girls imprisoned in Afghanistan for “moral crimes,” Human Rights Watch said in a new report released today. The United States and other donor countries should press the Afghan government under President Hamid Karzai to end the wrongful imprisonment of women and girls who are crime victims rather than criminals. The 120-page report, “‘I Had to Run Away’: Women and Girls Imprisoned for ‘Moral Crimes’” in Afghanistan, is based on 58 interviews conducted in three prisons and three juvenile detention facilities with women and girls accused of “moral crimes.” Almost all girls...

NOVANEWS When the extreme measures have run their course there will be nothing to fall back on and nothing can save the president of a collapsing empire from the revolt of its citizens and soldiers.   by Prof. James Petras   The March 11 Massacre of the 17 Afghan citizens, including at least nine children and four women, raises many fundamental issues about the nature of a colonial war, the practices of a colonial army engaged in a prolonged (eleven-year) occupation and the character of an imperial state as it commits war crimes and increasingly relies on arbitrary dictatorial measures to secure public compliance and suppress dissent. After the cold-blooded murder of the 17 Afghan villagers in Kandahar Province the US military and the ever-complicit Obama regime constructed an ...

NOVANEWS by Stephen Lendman   Murder anywhere is bad enough. Nuremberg chief prosecutor Robert Jackson called preemptive aggressive war killing “the supreme international crime against peace.” Convicted Nazi war criminals were hanged. American ones keep killing with impunity. On March 11, up to 20 US Special Forces (trained killers) murdered 16 Afghan civilians, including nine children aged 2 – 12 while they slept. Two women were also raped before soldiers killed them. Bodies of all victims were then burned to conceal evidence. It wasn’t an isolated incident. It happens regularly in all US wars. Rarely is anyone held accountable, especially responsible parties up the chain of command to the top. More on that below. On March 22, The New York Times headlined, “US Sergeant Faces 1...

NOVANEWS In all US war theaters, troops commit unspeakable atrocities. Trained to dehumanize enemies, their mission involves killing, destruction, and much more.   by Stephen Lendman   Local treasures are looted. Women are raped. Civilians are treated like combatants. Children are indiscriminately harmed like adults. Prisoners are tortured. Mutilations are common. Crimes of war and against humanity are institutionalized. It’s all in a day’s work like taking out the garbage. Viciousness defines US wars. No crime’s too great to commit. Human lives are valueless. Only winning matters, then on to the next war. Lies, deception, unspeakable brutality, and cover-up define them. Scoundrel media are directly complicit, including claiming one soldier murdered 16 Afgans on March 11. Cre...

NOVANEWS A villager points to a spot where a family was allegedly shot in their residence by a rogue US soldier in Alkozai village of Panjwayi district, Kandahar province on March 11, 2012 (AFP Photo / Mamoon Durrani)   Gruesome new details are surfacing after 16 Afghan villagers including nine children were shot in their houses by at least one US serviceman. Witnesses to the atrocity now say that several drunken American soldiers were involved. Neighbors at the village where the killings took place said they were awoken past midnight by crackling gunfire: "They were all drunk and shooting all over the place," Reuters cites Agha Lala, a villager in Kandahar's Panjwayi district. Lala's neighbor Haji Samad lost all of his 11 relatives in the rampage, including children and gr...