Afghanistan

NOVANEWS Photo by KHURAM PARVEZ/REUTERS by Zaki Khalid Ladies and gentlemen, the photo posted above is courtesy of Reuters, a globally-renowned news agency which is part of the corporate media whose every report and breaking news is taken by most of the world’s pseudo-realist citizens as “The Divine Truth”. When alternative (read “actual”) news forums which present the other side of the picture, such as this very forum itself, share such content, we are mostly ridiculed or brushed aside as non-credible sources. But we remain content knowing that sooner or later, the truth will be spilled out from official sources, some day or the other. The image above highlights what we’ve been saying all along that the so-called “Tehreek e Taliban Pakistan” (TTP) is actually a poor, distorted duplicate ...

NOVANEWS Wired reports that following a $22.3 million no-bid deal, US special forces in Afghanistan are now based at a facility owned by America’s “most infamous private security company”:You might think that Blackwater, now called Academi, was banished into some bureaucratic exile after its operatives in Afghanistan stole guns from U.S. weapons depots and killed Afghan civilians. Wrong. Academi’s private 10-acre compound outside Kabul, called Camp Integrity, is the new headquarters for perhaps the most important special operations unit in Afghanistan.…But the commandos won’t be the only U.S. military tenants at Camp Integrity. A Pentagon agency called the Counter-Narcoterrorism Program Office also uses Camp Integrity as a base of operations to aid in its war on Afghanistan’s drug lords. ...

NOVANEWS Wired reports that following a $22.3 million no-bid deal, US special forces in Afghanistan are now based at a facility owned by America’s “most infamous private security company”:You might think that Blackwater, now called Academi, was banished into some bureaucratic exile after its operatives in Afghanistan stole guns from U.S. weapons depots and killed Afghan civilians. Wrong. Academi’s private 10-acre compound outside Kabul, called Camp Integrity, is the new headquarters for perhaps the most important special operations unit in Afghanistan.…But the commandos won’t be the only U.S. military tenants at Camp Integrity. A Pentagon agency called the Counter-Narcoterrorism Program Office also uses Camp Integrity as a base of operations to aid in its war on Afghanistan’s drug l...

NOVANEWS The Afghans were all young boys, civilians, drinking tea when British troops shot and killed them antiwar.com Britain has launched an inquiry into claims that in October British forces in Afghanistan shot and killed a 12-year old boy and three young teenagers as they were drinking tea, all civilians, in an execution-style killing. In a letter sent to Britain’s defense secretary Philip Hammond, lawyers acting for relatives of two of the four killed said, ”The four boys killed all appear to have been deliberately targeted at close range by British forces. All were killed in a residential area over which UK forces clearly had the requisite degree of control and authority.” No investigation was ever launched into this incident. NATO spokesman Major Adam Wojack confirmed an operatio...

NOVANEWS Justin Griffith This is coming from the Army’s website of pre-packaged videos for the media to pick up. It’s all well and good to be respectful of fallen soldiers, and to embrace diversity among the religious preferences. But to brag about the fact that you brought the first Torah Scroll into a Muslim nation? Probably not a good idea. This is one time that I hope they just remove the video, before some Islamic fundamentalists get a hold of it. Usually, I’d suggest they ‘keep the evidence’ etc. But this time… yikes! Please take this shit down! Also, it’s probably a bit offensive to practicing Jews too when they mis-spelled Torah a few times. (‘Torrah’ appears in the description, and on the website). This document is actually kind of cool. I’d like to see the Army prominently dis...

NOVANEWS By Sajjad Shaukat In the recent months, more than 50 ethnic Tibetans died through self-immolation in China, which included many Buddhist monks and nuns, calling for Tibetan freedom and the return of their spiritual leader, Dalai Lama who has lived in exile in India since a failed uprising against Chinese rule in 1959. Many Buddhist Tibetans accuse the Chinese government of religious repression, while eroding their culture, as majority of Han ethnic group also lives in the regions. In the past few years, several persons died in the terror-incidents and ethnic riots occurred in various regions of China’s Xinjiang-the largely populated Muslim province. In January, this year, Chinese Police shot dead more protesters in Tibetan territories as unrest spread to some other areas including...

NOVANEWS by crescentandcross mcclatchydc.com In this courtroom sketch, U.S. Army Staff Sgt. Robert Bales, lower left, watches testimony from a man named Faizullah, on a video monitor at upper left, sitting next to a translator. At right is military prosecutor Lt. Col. Jay Morse. | Lois Silver/AP The Afghan children awakened in the dead of night with a terrifying warning: An American soldier was in their village, and he had shot at least one man to death. “He killed my man,” their neighbor’s wife cried as she ran into their home. Sadiqullah, 13, hid behind a curtain. His older brother, Quadratullah, shouted “We are children! We are children!” only to see the soldier shoot his sister. Haji Mohammed Naim, the father of the household, saw the American approach and asked, “What are you...

NOVANEWS Posted by: Sammi Ibrahem Sr www.lalkar.org 7 October 2012 marked the eleventh anniversary of the start of the US-led predatory war in Afghanistan.  Following the 9/11 events in New York and Washington in 2001, in which 2,977 people were killed, and using these events as a pretext for a war long in preparation, the US and other imperialist countries and their satellites invaded Afghanistan and overthrew its legitimate government, calling this barbaric war of pillage and spoliation ‘Operation Enduring Freedom’. Losses of Afghan and Iraq wars Not content with one illegal war of aggression, and puffed up by its apparent early successes, the US, leading a coalition of the willing, the coerced and the subservient, marched into Iraq in ‘Operation Iraqi Freedom’, lacking even the shred of...

NOVANEWS How to Find Qualified Afghan Leadership By Khalil Nouri As 2014 approaches and NATO prepares to leave Afghanistan while the Afghan presidential election begins to activate, there are a set of indigenous conditions that must set the standard for the effective transfer of power to qualified Afghan leadership that cannot be ignored any longer by policy makers. Afghan Voters “A leader is one who knows the way, goes the way, and shows the way” and “A great leader’s courage to fulfill his vision comes from passion, not position”, John C. Maxwell (1971). Since the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 those qualities have been in short supply for the country. Sadly it has lacked a true leader to steer the Afghan nation towards the only path that would lead to a unified and progressive Af...