Afghanistan

Video: Afghans Stone US Drone

February 2, 2014 Staff, , www.rt.com Resist! Afghanistan, Drones, Video, Wars and Militarism

Footage of what appears to be a group of cheering Afghans stoning a wreck of a Predator drone appeared on the internet. The video was posted on Wednesday on a Facebook news page called ‘Afghanistan 24/7’. It shows a group of several dozen people standing next to what appears a crash site of an MQ-1 Predator drone. Such aircraft are used extensively by the NATO-led coalition in Afghanistan for surveillance and to deliver airstrikes against Taliban militants. The man taking the footage is heard laughing and cheering in delight, as some of the people present throw rocks at the damaged aircraft from a safe distance.

Safety Elusive for Destitute Families in Kabul

January 13, 2014 Kathy Kelly, www.coolrevolution.net Educate! Afghanistan, Middle East

I came to the camp with young activists of the Afghan Peace Volunteers there to distribute heavy coverlets, (duvets), manufactured with foreign donations by local seamstresses, precisely for distribution free of charge to Kabul’s neediest people in the winter months. The UK sister organization to my own group, Voices for Creative Nonviolence, will distribute food packages in the camp during the coming week. We’ll never know who the fire might have killed, because when the old or the young die from the pressures of poverty, of homelessness, of war, we can’t know which disaster tipped the balance. We won’t know which catastrophe, specifically, will have taken any lives lost here to this dreadful winter. Many will be consumed by the slow conflagration of widespread poverty, corruption, inequality and neglect.

Cost of Iraq and Afghan Wars Could Hit $6 trillion

January 8, 2014 Peter Foster, www.telegraph.co.uk Educate! Afghanistan, Iraq, Wars and Militarism

The fresh calculation – which includes the cost of spiralling veterans' care bills and the future interest on war loans – paints a grim picture of how America's future at home and abroad has been mortgaged to the two conflicts entered into by George W Bush in 2001 and 2003. "There will be no peace dividend," is the stark conclusion from the 22-page report from the Kennedy School of Government, "and the legacy of Iraq and Afghanistan wars will be costs that persist for decades." The report comes as the US prepares for a final withdrawal from Afghanistan, a move that Barack Obama trumpeted in his State of the Union address as a sign that America was finally moving forward after a sapping decade of war.

2 Million Voices Remember 2 Million Victims Of Afghan War

December 13, 2013 Afghan Peace Volunteers, www.ourjourneytosmile.com Petitions and Online Actions Afghanistan, Human Rights, Wars and Militarism

On the 16th of November, 2013, eight-year-old Hashim s/o Abdul Hamid and nine-year-old Zukoom s/o Abdul Majid were on the streets of Kabul polishing boots when a suicide bombing ( in opposition to the U.S./Afghanistan Bilateral Security Agreement ) killed them. Johnny Barber, a peace activist from New York, and Ronya, an independent, freelance journalist from Germany, accompanied the Afghan Peace Volunteers ( APVs ) to Hashim’s and Zukoom’s funeral in an Internally Displaced Persons ( IDP ) camp two days later. We had a conversation with Hashim and Zukoom’s classmates, Kahar and Naseem, which you can view at “At least 13 Afghan civilians killed, including Hashim & Zukoom”

Support The Duvet Project: Bring Warmth And Income To Afghans

November 29, 2013 Dr. Hakim and Kathy Kelly, www.vcnv.org Create! Afghanistan, Wars and Militarism

Last year, the Afghan Peace Volunteers and the women’s sewing cooperative which is hosted by the APVs at their home, worked very hard to create and distribute 2,000 duvets. The concern and generosity of people living beyond Afghanistan enabled people to help one another and also allowed the seamstresses to earn money that helped them provide food and warmth for their own families. Many of the people who received duvets have been displaced by war. .Amnesty International reported, in 2012 that war in Afghanistan had driven 400 people per day into the overcrowded cities. New refugees have sought shelter in camps where they have minimal protection against the harshest elements of winter weather. Scores of people, including children, have frozen to death over the past few winters in Kabul. In this cruel context, we deeply appreciate a chance to share resources more equitably and to be of at least some service to innocent people struggling to survive in a quagmire of war and impoverishment.

Protests Erupt As US Keeps Thousands Of Troops In Afghanistan

November 21, 2013 Staff, www.fightbacknews.org Resist! Afghanistan, Wars and Militarism

On Nov. 20 the U.S. and Afghan governments announced that final language had been agreed to for a Bilateral Security Agreement (BSA) that would have U.S. troops staying in Afghanistan until at least 2024. This agreement will lay the basis for continuing the U.S. military intervention in Afghanistan. Plans are being made to leave 10,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan after 2014, when the Obama administration had said all U.S. troops would be out of Afghanistan. There will also be several thousand NATO forces left in Afghanistan along with the U.S. troops. There likely will be thousands of “contractors” as well. There is growing opposition in Afghanistan to the agreement. Tasnim news agency reported that there was a protest in Kabul, Nov. 18, against the agreement. Tasnim reported, “During the demonstration on Monday, the protesters once again expressed opposition to the so-called Bilateral Security Agreement.

Enlightenment

November 20, 2013 Kathy Kelly, www.warisacrime.org Educate! Afghanistan, Education, Wars and Militarism

In Afghanistan, prospects may be looking up for U.S. corporate control of crucial oil pipelines in the region; for early military encirclement of anticipated superpower rival China; and for unrivalled access to some 1 trillion dollars’ worth of copper, gold and iron ore, and perhaps 1.4 million tons of rare earth elements vital to Western industry, all of it awaiting extraction from the earth beneath Afghans’ feet. While mainstream media in U.S. locales with a strong military presence may suggest that the U.S. has convincingly promised enlightenment for Afghan people, regarding women’s rights and girls education, many Afghans wonder how they will fare caught between Western nations ruling the skies above their heads and the mineral resources which those nations are so uncontestably eager to bring out of darkness and into the light. Do they have a resource curse, they wonder, as other countries will want to avail themselves of these resources and jockey for control.

Is The US Covering Up Civilian Murders By Green Berets?

November 12, 2013 Hamid Shalizi and Dylan Welch, www.Reuters.com Educate! Afghanistan, Wars and Militarism

Afghanistan's intelligence service has abandoned its investigation into the murder of a group of civilians after being refused access to U.S. special forces soldiers suspected of involvement, according to a document obtained by Reuters. Seventeen men disappeared after being detained in U.S. raids in Wardak province between October 2012 and February 2013. Bodies of 10 of the men were found by residents in shallow graves within several hundred metres of the U.S. soldiers' base. Mystery surrounding their deaths has added tension to U.S.-Afghan ties already strained over delays to a proposed security pact designed to define the future of U.S. troops after most foreign forces leave the country by the end of next year. In the report authored by Afghanistan's National Directorate of Security (NDS) intelligence agency, investigators said they had asked the United States for access to three U.S. Green Berets and four Afghan translators working with them but were rebuffed. "Despite many requests by NDS they have not cooperated. Without their cooperation this process cannot be completed," said the report, which was originally published on Sept. 23. U.S. military officials were not immediately available for comment but they have long said the Green Berets did not take part in, or turn a blind eye to, illegal killings in Wardak.

Americans Can’t Remember, Afghans Will Never Forget

October 3, 2013 Ann Jones, www.tomdispatch.com Educate! Afghanistan, Wars and Militarism

The Afghan War is officially winding down. American casualties, generally from towns and suburbs you’ve never heard of unless you were born there, are still coming in. Though far fewer American troops are in the field with Afghan forces, devastating “insider attacks” in which a soldier or policeman turns his gun on his American allies, trainers, or mentors still periodically occur. Civilian casualties continue to rise. “Surgically precise” U.S. air and drone strikes still mysteriously kill Afghan civilians. And as U.S. combat troops withdraw, Afghan-on-Afghan fighting is actually increasing, with the U.S.-trained army taking almost Vietnam-level, possibly unsustainable casualties (100 or more dead a week), while the police are similarly hit hard. Meanwhile, as TomDispatch regular Ann Jones points out, our second longest war has already played Houdini, doing a remarkable disappearing job in "the homeland." Almost 12 years after it began, no one here, it seems, is considering how to assess American “success” on that distant battlefield

10 Facts About US Withdrawal from Afghanistan

July 24, 2013 Staff, www.salsa.democracyinaction.org Petitions and Online Actions Afghanistan

In June 2011, President Obama announced his plan to begin the withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan. But the president did not say that all US troops would leave Afghanistan by the end of 2014. What he did say was 10,000 troops would be removed by the end of the summer 2011, with 23,000 additional troops leaving at the end of the summer of 2012. After that, according to the President: "our troops will continue coming home at a steady pace as Afghan security forces move into the lead. Our mission will change from combat to support. By 2014, this process of transition will be complete, and the Afghan people will be responsible for their own security." Notice that the President did not say that our mission in Afghanistan will end by 2014, only that it will cease to be a "combat" mission and become a "support" mission.

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