I’ve just returned from Afghanistan where I was independently investigating the role of the war economy and vulture capitalism since 2001. I’ve never been to a country like it; Beautiful, suffering under Western occupation, Taliban attacks, deep conservatism, poverty and US-empowered warlords. I met Afghan civilians who had suffered at the hands of private mercenaries,…
Showing all posts tagged Afghanistan
American wars killing soldiers in the thousands
Shocking (via the New York Times): An American soldier dies every day and a half, on average, in Iraq or Afghanistan. Veterans kill themselves at… a rate of one every 80 minutes. More than 6,500 veteran suicides are logged every year — more than the total number of soldiers killed in Afghanistan and Iraq combined since…
We are being lied to over Afghanistan says senior US army man
US Army Lieutenant Colonel Daniel Davis: Senior ranking US military leaders have so distorted the truth when communicating with the US Congress and American people in regards to conditions on the ground in Afghanistan that the truth has become unrecognizable.
Pakistan: private security is a state within a state
My following investigation appears in Australian publication Crikey today: The Pakistani city of Peshawar is situated an hour from Afghanistan. Driving there from Islamabad, the landscape was mostly lush green fields, poor villages and mud houses. After being stopped at five checkpoints along the way, an attempt to intercept foreigners and militants entering the sensitive…
Australia sharing disaster capitalism skills with Afghanistan
Dispiriting news. Australia, apparently so proud of exploiting resources, now wants to share this knowledge with a poor nation such as Afghanistan that is open to vulture capitalists. The Australian reports: Afghanistan is looking to the Australian mining industry for instruction and investment as the war-torn nation stakes its stability and economic future on the…
Australians deserve truth about Afghanistan (and media and political complicity in the mess)
Australia is ruled by craven fools, desperate to shield the public from the reality of the war in Afghanistan. We lost years ago. The Sunday Age: Australian officials have rejected an expert report critical of conditions in Afghanistan, demanding that it be rewritten to match upbeat government claims of dramatic progress and improved security. The…
How to leave Afghanistan, and soon
Well, that’s one view about the war in Afghanistan, by Anatol Lieven in the New York Review of Books: The attempt by US-led NATO forces in 2001 and 2002 to create a strong Pashtun alternative to the Taliban from among former Mujahedin forces failed because so many had either disgraced themselves by their oppressive policies…
Perfect case study of NYT echoing Washington on Iran
The role of real journalists is to question every allegation made by officials of whatever stripe. If you work for the New York Times, however, you like to give anonymity to a motley collection of “American officials” to talk about allegedly malign Iranian influence on the world. Because of course Washington’s influence is so benign…
Reality and rhetoric in Afghanistan
Charles Glass in Harpers nails it: The week of March 20 was supposed to have been Afghanistan’s first without private-security companies on its soil since the American invasion of 2001. However, a few months ago, the Afghan government delayed for a second time its implementation of Presidential Decree 62, promulgated in August 2010, which called…
