Afghanistan Archives

23Dec

By SHOAHNo Comments

USA

The Wall, the Shutdown, Mattis, Syria, Afghanistan

NOVANEWS The Wall, the Shutdown, Mattis, Syria, Afghanistan — Trump ends 2018 with a tidal wave of incompetence The US was just hit with a tsunami Of Trumpism. By Terry Schwadron Photo Credit: Official White House Photo by Joyce N. Boghosian According to the latest reports, Trump was still saying he would move ahead with a partial government shutdown today, rather than accept a budget without the Wall. This story first appeared at DC Report. Under pressure from the most conservative of his supporters, Trump is betting that this is the moment to take a stand, rather than sign the usual, last-minute, kick-the-can-down-the-road temporary delay otherwise backed by his Republican congressional majority to a new Congress with a Democratic House majority. Let’s be clear here. We’re all lo...

28Aug

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Afghanistan, China

Confrontation of Superpowers in Afghanistan: China Envisages Military Presence in Strategic Wakhan Corridor

NOVANEWS By Masud Wadan Global Research Note to readers: please click the share buttons above Masud Wadan reporting from Kabul. To mark the legitimacy of US military in Afghanistan, Washington recently declined participating in a Russia-led peace talks on Afghanistan which had been scheduled for September 4 in Moscow. In a statement, the Russian embassy in Kabul expressed disappointment and described Washington’s refusal as based on “unfounded reasons”. The Afghan ministry of external affairs also toed the US line and refused to participate in the meeting citing that the talks are not led by Afghanistan. Not the first time, the US did turn down Russia’s invitation for Afghan peace talks on April 14 last year. The US doesn’t want Russia on board. However, there are no reason...

26Aug

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Afghanistan

In Afghanistan, Our Need to Rethink the Institution of War

NOVANEWS We’ve been thinking that we need armies to stop ‘terrorists’, but armies don’t stop ‘terrorists’. Instead, they give ‘terrorists’ reason to keep fighting by: Dr. Hakim The People’s Peace Movement ( PPM ) walking barefoot to the Northern provinces of Afghanistan, led by a blind member of their group, Zindani. (Photo: PPM’s Facebook Page) 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 the Northern areas of Afghanistan to persuade fellow Afghans, whether they’re ...

15Aug

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Afghanistan

ISIS Likely Behind Suicide Bombing That Killed 25 Students in Afghanistan

NOVANEWS A man who was injured in a deadly suicide bombing that targeted a training class in a private building in the Shiite neighborhood of Dasht-i Barcha is placed in an ambulance in western Kabul, Afghanistan, Aug. 15, 2018. Both the resurgent Taliban and an Islamic State affiliate in Afghanistan have targeted Shiites in the past, considering them to be heretics. Rahmat Gul | AP A year after the Trump administration introduced its strategy for Afghanistan, the Taliban and ISIS are asserting themselves on the battlefield even as U.S. officials talk up hopes for peace, raising questions about the viability of the American game plan for ending a war that began when some of the current U.S. troops were in diapers. by Rahim Faiez and Amir Shah KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — A sui...

4Aug

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Afghanistan, USA

Afghanistan: The Taliban Have Fought the U.S. to the Negotiating Table

NOVANEWS By Dr. Binoy Kampmark Global Research Note to readers: please click the share buttons above “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 – at least in a fashion. Ever since a vengeful US took to the field in Afghanistan in an effort to redraw the political landscape in its favour, the country has been true to its historical record: drawing, draining and dispersing the manpower and material of an empire. Washington’s longest war has take...

27May

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Afghanistan

Is US Afghanistan policy failing on purpose?

NOVANEWS Why is the US continuing the stalemate in Afghanistan as a matter of policy? By: Jim W. Dean, Managing Editor Afghans question US worth in Taliban fight, as Pentagon watchdog admits ‘lack of progress’ With few Americans coming home in body bags, the Afghanistan war is off the public’s radar [ Editor’s Note: My question in the title is a serious one, because it does not take a genius to understand that an incremental increase in US ground troops would be easily countered by additional Taliban-recruiting to drive out the infidels. Using the big bombers has a history of failure in insurgent warfare, where high causalities boomerang because the Taliban then wants to wipe out more government positions while inflicting retaliatory attacks on Kabul. The smart money has long advi...

6Mar

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Afghanistan

Afghanistan: Deconstructing America’s Murder Machine

NOVANEWS State Department's Letter to the Afghan freedom fighters Villagers Is Not Diplomacy. It Is a Joke. By; Kadir A. Mohmand Editor’s Note: This is a letter to Congress, written by Kadir A. Mohmand, Former Representative for North America of the Afghan Freedom Fighters in the 1980s. He refers to the State Department’s letter to the Afghan freedom fighter villagers. He also addresses the Honorable Alice Wells, U.S. Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for South and Central Asian Affairs U.S. Department of State, regarding the Kabul Peace Conference (which he declares a sham) held on February 28, 2018. Read, learn, and understand what the Afghan population faces daily. Listen to someone who has lived there, fought for Afghanistan and its principles, and seeks to open the ey...

30Jan

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Afghanistan

Geopolitical Rivalries and Afghanistan’s Open-Ended War

NOVANEWS Geopolitical Rivalries and Afghanistan’s Open-Ended War. China Extends its Influence to the Detriment of America Shifting Geopolitical Reality in Afghanistan: Threat to US Hegemony? Part II By Fraidoon Amel Global Research Violent geopolitical rivalries between imperialist and hegemonist powers over Afghanistan’s natural resources, trade and transit routes, and geostrategic location have dramatically intensified. Despite sixteen years of heavy-handed US presence to establish its hegemony in Afghanistan and beyond, influence of regional powers like Russia, China, Iran, Pakistan, and India is growing. The Perpetual War Sixteen years into the longest war in its history, the US is aggressively flexing its muscles to assert and maintain its hegemony in Afghanistan and th...

19Dec

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Afghanistan

The Unlikely Industry Empowering Women in Afghanistan

NOVANEWS By Ruchi Kumar, YES! Magazine (Image: Jared Rodriguez / Truthout) The typical depiction of an Afghan woman looks like this: Timid and fearful, she is a victim of her extremely conservative and regressive society, unable to move around or do much without a man. But some Afghan women are busting these stereotypes, creating a niche for women to empower themselves and change the status quo. A 36-year-old restaurant owner named Laila Haidary walks around the cafe gardens, carefully tending to the colorful foliage that grows generously around Kabul. She narrates her story of building a business in Afghanistan, a country governed by the rules of men. Overlooking the gardens is a midsize structure: a traditional Afghan house, with thick walls, large windows, and ample courtyard sp...

16Dec

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Afghanistan

Is TIME’s Afghan “cover girl” really a victim of mutilation by the Taleban?

NOVANEWS Zero Anthropology TIME : What Happens if We Leave Afghanistan (story) BOING BOING : What Still Happened Despite 10 Years of Occupying Afghanistan (story) ZERO ANTHRO : What Happens When We Don’t Fix Problems at Home (story) The August 9th TIME magazine cover story is about a young Afghan woman whose nose and ears have been allegedly “mutilated” by the Taleban. The story has generated widespread self-serving moral indignation and self-righteous clamor in the U.S. propaganda machine supporting the occupation of Afghanistan run by the Israeli-American weapon-making industry. The American culture cleansing project in Afghanistan must be in need of a booster shot from the radical feminist forces that so fervently collaborated with the American war machine in initiating th...