Afghanistan

Newsletter: Peace Defeats War

September 13, 2015 Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers, www.PopularResistance.org Newsletter Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, Peace, Refugees, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Wars and Militarism, Yemen

By Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers - This week we learned that there is enough opposition to war in the United States that diplomacy can defeat war. When the Senate voted to derail a deal to stop war with Iran over nuclear weapons, it was a major victory for the peace movement, but it is an opportunity for much more. To achieve the potential we now know we have begins with facing the reality of current US foreign policy. The truth is shrouded by politicians of both parties who believe in “American exceptionalism. The United States has a deep and broad war culture. Every town has a war memorial. There are multiple holidays that honor war and soldiers. The media puts forward the war culture view interviewing former military leaders, most of who are now in the weapons industry. It is the job of the peace movement to challenge the war culture.

14 Years Of The War on Terror Produce More Terror

September 12, 2015 Paul Gottinger, readersupportednews.org Educate! Afghanistan, Iraq, Terrorism, Wars and Militarism

By Paul Gottinger for Reader Supported News - Terror attacks have jumped by a stunning 6,500% since 2002, according to a new analysis by Reader Supported News. The number of casualties resulting from terror attacks has increased by 4,500% over this same time period. These colossal upsurges in terror took place despite a decade-long, worldwide effort to fight terrorism that has been led by the United States. The analysis, conducted with figures provided by the US State Department, also shows that from 2007 to 2011 almost half of all the world’s terror took place in Iraq or Afghanistan – two countries being occupied by the US at the time. Countries experiencing US military interventions continue to be subjected to high numbers of terror attacks, according to the data. In 2014, 74 percent of all terror-related casualties occurred in Iraq, Nigeria, Afghanistan, Pakistan, or Syria. Of these five, only Nigeria did not experience either US air strikes or a military occupation in that year.

Report: 1.3 Million Lives Lost In US War On Terror

March 29, 2015 Staff, www.psr.org Educate! Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Wars and Militarism

The report, authored by members and colleagues of the German affiliate of the Nobel Prize-winning International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW), is a comprehensive account of the vast and continuing human toll of the various “Wars on Terror” conducted in the name of the American people since the events of September 11, 2001. This publication highlights the difficulties in defining outcomes as it compares evaluations of war deaths in Iraq, Pakistan and Afghanistan. Even so, the numbers are horrific. The number of Iraqis killed during and since the 2003 U.S. invasion have been assessed at one million, which represents 5% of the total population of Iraq. This does not include deaths among the three million refugees subjected to privations. Body Count takes a clear and objective look at the various and often contradictory--reports of mortality in conflicts directed by the U.S. and allied forces in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan. The result is a fuller picture of the devastation and lethality to civilian non-combatants throughout these regions. Unfortunately, these deaths have been effectively hidden from our collective consciousness.

UN Reveals ‘Credible & Reliable’ Evidence Of US Military Torture

February 27, 2015 Sarah Lazare, www.commondreams.org Educate! Afghanistan, Torture, United Nations, usa, Wars and Militarism

The United Nations revealed Wednesday it has "credible and reliable" evidence that people recently detained at U.S. military prisons in Afghanistan have faced torture and abuse. The UN's Assistance Mission and High Commissioner for Human Rights exposed the findings in a report based on interviews with 790 "conflict-related detainees" between February 2013 and December 2014. According to the investigation, two detainees "provided sufficiently credible and reliable accounts of torture in a U.S. facility in Maydan Wardak in September 2013 and a U.S. Special Forces facility at Baghlan in April 2013." The report states that the allegations of torture were investigated by "relevant authorities" but provided no information about the outcome of the alleged probes or the nature of the mistreatment.

U.S. Army Claims To Be Full of Liars

February 25, 2015 David Swanson, www.worldbeyondwar.org Educate! Afghanistan, Iraq, Violence, Wars and Militarism

“Lying to Ourselves: Dishonesty in the Army Profession” is the title of a new paper by Leonard Wong and Stephen Gerras of the U.S. Army’s Strategic Studies Institute. Its thesis: the U.S. Army is full of liars who habitually lie as part of a lying culture that has internalized and normalized lying to the point of unrecognizability. Finally a claim from the Army I’m prepared to take seriously! But the authors aren’t interested in the Army’s lying press releases or lying Congressional testimony or lying sound bytes promoting each new war, predicting imminent success, and identifying each dead adult or child as an evildoer. In fact, it seems pretty clear that the authors are in fact lying to themselves about the nature of the Army’s lying.

The Front Page Rule

February 21, 2015 Kathy Kelly, www.vcnv.org Educate! Afghanistan, Drones, Pakistan, Wars and Militarism

After a week here in FMC Lexington Satellite camp, a federal prison in Kentucky, I started catching up on national and international news via back issues of USA Today available in the prison library, and an “In Brief” item, on p. 2A of the Jan. 30 weekend edition, caught my eye. It briefly described a protest in Washington, D.C., in which members of the antiwar group Code Pink interrupted a U.S. Senate Armed Services budget hearing chaired by Senator John McCain. The protesters approached a witness table where Henry Kissinger, Madeleine Albright and George Schulz were seated. One of their signs called Henry Kissinger a war criminal. “McCain,” the article continued, “blurted out, ‘Get out of here, you low-life scum.’” At mail call, a week ago, I received Richard Clarke’s novel, The Sting of the Drone, (May 2014, St. Martin’s Press), about characters involved in developing and launching drone attacks.

CIA Destroyed Afghanistan’s First Progressive Government

February 9, 2015 Professor John Ryan, www.informationclearinghouse.info Educate! Afghanistan, Imperialism, Wars and Militarism

The barbarous phenomenon we recently witnessed in France has roots that go back to at least 1979 when the mujahedeen made their appearance in Afghanistan. At that time their ire was directed at the leftist Taraki government that had come into power in April of 1978. This government’s ascension to power was a sudden and totally indigenous happening – with equal surprise to both the USA and the USSR. In April of 1978 the Afghan army deposed the country’s government because of its oppressive measures, and then created a new government, headed by a leftist, Nur Mohammad Taraki, who had been a writer, poet and professor of journalism at the University of Kabul.

Afghanistan: Building Alternatives To Overcome The ‘Usual’

January 13, 2015 Hakim Young, www.ourjourneytosmile.com Create! Afghanistan, Border-free, Peace, Wars and Militarism

In polluted Kabul, I’ve been trying my faltering best not to live ‘life-as-usual’. The ‘usual’ has no song. It has fumes enveloping the city in the evenings, making us cough. It has no imagination, regurgitating Obama’s lie that the Afghan war is over, while repeating the violent refrains of ‘fight, fight, fight.’ It ignores human beings, especially children. Every week in Kabul, the Afghan Peace Volunteers at the Borderfree Nonviolence Community Centre take me away from the ‘usual’. They’re building an alternative life. Please join them to become a Borderfree Community wherever you are, Communities that try to build green spaces where we share life’s basic necessities with all, and where there’s no war!

The Greatest Trick Obama Ever Pulled: America Isn’t Still At War

January 8, 2015 Trevor Timm, www.theguardian.com Educate! Afghanistan, Wars and Militarism

The holiday headlines blared without a hint of distrust: “End of War” and“Mission Ends” and “U.S. formally ends the war in Afghanistan”, as the US government and Nato celebrated the alleged end of the longest war in American history. Great news! Except, that is, when you read past the first paragraph: “the fighting is as intense as it has ever been since the U.S.-led invasion in 2001,” according to the Wall Street Journal. And about 10,000 troops will remain there for the foreseeable future (more than we had a year after the Afghan war started). Oh, and they’ll continue to engage in combat regularly. But other than that, yeah, the war is definitely over. This is the new reality of war: As long as the White House doesn’t admit the United States is at war, we’re all supposed to pretend as if that’s true. This ruse is not just the work of the president.

Will International Criminal Court Finally Hold US Accountable?

December 6, 2014 David Bosco, www.foreignpolicy.com Educate! Afghanistan, Human Rights, Law, United Nations, Wars and Militarism

The International Criminal Court in The Hague is tiptoeing closer to a confrontation with the United States. The key issue is U.S. detention practices, and the alleged use of torture, in Afghanistan. A report just released by the office of the court’s prosecutor, Fatou Bensouda, for the first time explicitly names U.S. forces as potential culprits. The back story of the International Criminal Court’s (ICC’s) inquiry into possible crimes in Afghanistan extends more than a decade. Afghanistan joined the ICC in early 2003, less than a year after the court opened its doors. That move gave the international prosecutor potentially broad jurisdiction over crimes committed by all combatants on Afghan soil.

New Campaign Calling For Release Of Shaker Aamer From Guantanamo

November 17, 2014 Andy Worthington, www.andyworthington.co.uk Resist! Afghanistan, Guantanamo, Wars and Militarism

Next Monday, November 24, I’m launching a new campaign, “We Stand With Shaker,” with my colleague Jo Macinnes, and the support of organisations including Reprieve and the Save Shaker Aamer Campaign, calling for the release from Guantánamo of Shaker Aamer, the last British resident in the prison, born in Saudi Arabia, who has a British wife and four British children. Shamefully, for both the US and the UK governments, Shaker is still held despite being approved for release under President Bush in 2007, and under President Obama in 2009, following the deliberations of the high-level, inter-agency Guantánamo Review Task Force that the president established shortly after taking office for the first time in January 2009.

Court Orders Obama: Explain Failure To Release Torture Photos

October 23, 2014 Spencer Ackerman, www.theguardian.com Organize! Afghanistan, Human Rights, Iraq, Media, Torture, usa, Wars and Militarism

The Obama administration has until early December to detail its reasons for withholding as many as 2,100 graphic photographs depicting US military torture of detainees in Iraq and Afghanistan, a federal judge ordered on Tuesday. By 12 December, Justice Department attorneys will have to list, photograph by photograph, the government’s rationale for keeping redacted versions of the photos unseen by the public, Judge Alvin Hellerstein instructed lawyers. But any actual release of the photographs will come after Hellerstein reviews the government’s reasoning and issues another ruling in the protracted transparency case. While Hellerstein left unclear how much of the Justice Department’s declaration will itself be public, the government’s submission is likely to be its most detailed argument for secrecy over the imagery in a case that has lasted a decade.

Hundreds Protest NATO Bombing That Allegedly Killed Afghan Civilians

October 15, 2014 Sarah Lazare, www.commondreams.org Resist! Afghanistan, Drones, ISIS, NATO, Wars and Militarism

Hundreds of villagers in the Afghan province of Paktia staged protests on Monday following a NATO bombing on Sunday, which witnesses say struck civilians—killing seven of them, including a child, and wounding one. The protesters brought seven dead bodies from the Udkey area of Gardez city to the capital of the province, according to Abdul Wali Sahi, deputy governor of the province. "The local villagers claim that they were collecting firewood on a mountainside when they were hit by the airstrike. As you can see, there are children among the dead bodies," Sahi told media outlets. "The Afghan nation is tired of such killings. We are going to seriously investigate this incident, and we strongly condemn such a killing, and whoever committed this crime must be held accountable for their action."

Vets Win Expansion Of Freedom Of Speech

October 10, 2014 Margaret Flowers and Kevin Zeese, www.PopularResistance.org Resist! Afghanistan, Freedom of Speech and Assembly, Wars and Militarism

The mood at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial this year was bittersweet. There was palpable relief that we were free to express ourselves without police intimidation and that we could choose when to leave under our own terms. But there was also greater sadness than years before because a week after the President began bombing Iraq again and then Syria, Jacob George took his life. Some suspect the trauma of watching another US war begin, knowing that more soldiers and innocent civilians would die or be forever traumatized and seeing the Masters of War succeed in manipulating the public to support war was too much to bear.

Veterans For Peace Calls Out U.S. And Afghanistan Agreement

October 2, 2014 Veterans for Peace, www.veteransforpeace.org Educate! Afghanistan, US, Veterans, Veterans for Peace, Wars and Militarism

U.S. and Afghan officials signed a Bilateral Security Agreement that allows the U.S. to keep 10,000 service members in Afghanistan past December 2014. A separate agreement was signed with the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) who may contribute about 2,000 troops. Veterans For Peace calls for total withdrawal of U.S. troops and calls on the government of the United States to provide humanitarian aid directly to the people of Afghanistan, in non-coercive forms, to help the Afghan people rebuild their own lives and nation in cooperation with other nations in the region. The people of Afghanistan should be allowed to freely determine their own government without interference by the US.

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