Afghanistan

Katie Miernicki Download PDF flyer Photo: U.S. troops at the Kabul International Airport On Thursday a devastating terrorist attack struck the area outside of the Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul, Afghanistan. ISIS’s branch in Afghanistan, ISIS-K, has officially taken responsibility for the bombing. The blasts killed at least 169 Afghan civilians and 13 U.S. troops. People around the world are extending their deep sympathies to the victims and families affected by this tragic attack. This deadly bombing in the nation’s capital city occurred amidst a massive evacuation by U.S. forces and their allies following the collapse of the U.S.-backed Afghan government at the hands of the Taliban. The Taliban returned to power on August 15, announcing that they would grant...

BY STAN GOFF Never thought I’d put that in a title. I don’t like Joe Biden. I think his working class shtick is as phony as a street corner Rolex. He’s a liar. He’s a corporate sycophant. He’s a masher creep around women and girls. And he’s kind of an asshole in general (I know, takes one to know one). His political record is one long disaster. But . . . . . . Joe Biden did not fuck up with Afghanistan. He made the cleanest getaway possible, and this was altogether the right thing to do, no matter the fallout. There was no other way. For twenty years, we’ve been “turning the corner” in Afghanistan. It may not have occurred to many Americans — immersed as we are in militarism and American exceptionalism — that the American/NATO presence in Afghanistan was making things wo...

BY SONALI KOLHATKAR When a reporter in early July asked Joe Biden a question about the war in Afghanistan, the U.S. president sniped back, saying, “I want to talk about happy things, man.” Biden revealed, perhaps unintentionally, that the situation in Afghanistan is anything but a happy topic. It might have been one of the most revealing responses from a sitting president about the longest-running war in modern United States history. The president shifted focus, saying, “The economy is growing faster than anytime in 40 years, we’ve got a record number of new jobs, COVID deaths are down 90 percent, wages are up faster than any time in 15 years, we’re bringing our troops home.” The war’s end is merely the icing on the cake he is seemingly gifting the American public: an ...

"We must resist the urge to let our pain dictate our policy," said Rep. Sara Jacobs. "If we don't, we will have learned nothing from the last 20 years." KENNY STANCIL Following Thursday's blasts outside Kabul's international airport and a nearby hotel, which killed and injured dozens of Afghans and several United States military personnel, U.S. Rep. Sara Jacobs warned Congress and President Joe Biden against responding to the deadly attack with "more war and violence." "The answer cannot be more war and violence. The answer cannot be launching more ineffective and unaccountable counterterrorism operations."—Rep. Sara Jacobs "I am devastated by the loss of U.S. service members and innocent Afghan civilians in Kabul. My heart is with them and their loved ones,...

"Every last dollar of the $6 billion must be used to help save Afghan lives, not to boost Pentagon contractor profits," said Win Without War. KENNY STANCIL As U.S. lawmakers fight over how to reappropriate the roughly $6 billion previously budgeted or requested to support the now defeated Afghan security forces, one U.S.-based peace group is urging Congress to use the freed up war money "to help save Afghan lives, not to boost Pentagon contractor profits." "After two decades of occupation, tens of thousands of lives lost, and millions more displaced, it would be an insult to the people of Afghanistan to turn around and use the funds freed up by their government's collapse to double down on weapons and war."—Kate Kizer, Win Without War The...

National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan holds a press conference on developments in Afghanistan, in the James Brady Press Briefing Room of the White House on August 17, 2021, in Washington, D.C. BYDaniel Falcone, Truthout The corporate media in the U.S. were complicit in the escalation of the war in Afghanistan, argues historian Hannah Gurman, and they also were “boosters of Obama’s efforts to rebrand the war.” In this exclusive Truthout interview, Gurman — a professor at New York University Gallatin who studies both U.S. foreign affairs and American political culture — offers a critical analysis of why mainstream corporate media have settled on describing the war as a series of “miscalculations,” thereby obfuscating the disastrous imperial politics undergirding th...

Posted by: Sammi Ibrahem,Sr Afghans try to ask U.S. soldiers to be let into the East Gate of the airport in Kabul, Afghanistan, on August 25, 2021. BYWilliam Rivers Pitt, Truthout Apparent suicide bombers struck at the Abbey Gate of the Kabul airport in Afghanistan just as evening was settling in, followed by a second bombing at a nearby hotel. The gate itself was not in use — other gates had been prioritized for the swift removal of U.S. personnel — but huge crowds of Afghan civilians were still gathered there, hoping for escape. U.S. intelligence had been warning such an attack was “imminent,” and had advised Americans to stay away from the airport for the time being. Multiple civilians and U.S. Marines were killed in the attack. Reaction from the “news” ...