Following this week’s explosive article in Rolling Stone by Michael Hastings on the failing war in Afghanistan, these comments in Vanity Fair ring very true: McChrystal and Co. would have exhibited far better judgment had they looked into Hastings’s career and writings and come to the obvious conclusion that this sort of journalist has nothing…
Showing all posts tagged Afghanistan
Leading IDF lawyer explains how Israel justifies its action
My following article appears in today’s Crikey: On Tuesday lunchtime the Australian Human Rights Centre and the UNSW International Law and Policy Group (with assistance from the Israeli embassy) hosted a seminar on “The Fight against Terror: Practical Dilemmas in applying the Laws of War.” The two speakers were Professor Abraham Bell of Israel’s Bar-Ilan…
Can we have a mature discussion about the war in Afghanistan?
An aide to General Stanley McChrystal (currently in the firing line for making disparaging comments about Barack Obama over Afghanistan) tells journalist Michael Hastings that, “if Americans pulled back and started paying attention to this war, it would become even less popular.” This story isn’t about McChrystal’s criticisms but about the futile war in Afghanistan…
Only US-friendly terror groups are welcome
The latest decision by the US Supreme Court seems highly problematic, not least because America backs terrorists group every day (hello Afghanistan and Iraq, as two recent examples) yet wants to tell its citizens that they can only back groups that speak in lovely, warming tones about the super-power: The US supreme court has upheld…
Afghan warlords thank the coalition for its kindness
A timely reminder of what the West is actually doing in Afghanistan (removing one dictatorship and helping establish another): The U.S. military is funding a massive protection racket in Afghanistan, indirectly paying tens of millions of dollars to warlords, corrupt public officials and the Taliban to ensure safe passage of its supply convoys throughout the…
Those who love some commerce after a US occupation
A grimly fascinating tale in the New York Times about an enterprising Lebanese man who has opened a flash restaurant in Baghdad: Mr. Hage, 51, is the most updated version of an old Lebanese story, that of a diaspora known for its willingness to follow commerce where it leads. Simply put, for a decade, he…
Afghans don’t want foreign troops, ever
How many corporate journalists in the West bought Washington’s spin over recent “successes” in Afghanistan? The embedded mindset is a killer: Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal confronts the specter of a collapse of U.S. political support for the war in Afghanistan in coming months comparable to the one that occurred in the Iraq War in late…
Afghanistan about to face the mother of all mining booms (and let the whoring begin)
Surely a curse and not a blessing. A nation already at war will now find itself sold to the highest bidder: Has Afghanistan hit the natural-resources jackpot? A Pentagon study says it may have found untapped mineral deposits in Afghanistan worth $1 trillion—far more than has ever been found in any previously known reserves. More…
The war against Wikileaks
I’ve long admired Wikileaks, a clearing house for classified information (the “reasons” often used by Western governments to kill “liberated” Iraqis, Afghans etc). This news is therefore intriguing, not least because it shows that there is one (and probably more) people within the US government keen to tell the world about the “war on terror”…
Australia likes human rights in forums and debates but does little in reality
As Amnesty releases its annual report and highlights the “politicisation of international justice” – Israel and Sri Lanka are on their hit list -these issues have direct connection to Australia and the Labor government’s refusal to legally manage refugees from countries at war: RACHAEL BROWN: Last month Australia’s Immigration Minister Chris Evans announced the situation…