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…
Showing all posts tagged terrorism
When America trains a terrorist organisation and Israel joins in
How Washington supports and trains an organisation that kills civilians and the Zionist state is along for the ride. There’s a word for this; terrorism. Cracking Seymour Hersh piece in the New Yorker: From the air, the terrain of the Department of Energy’s Nevada National Security Site, with its arid high plains and remote mountain…
Disaster capitalism in Pakistan
I’ve just visited Pakistan investigating disaster capitalism for a forthcoming book and documentary. Amazing country. Beautiful, troubled, scary, complicated and centre of the world since 9/11 for (mostly) the wrong reasons. And private security is rampant. Stories coming but in the meantime here’s photos; Islamabad/Rawalpindi/Peshawar… and Karachi.
September 11 and Bin Laden; more pieces of the puzzle
Another day and another fascinating insight into Osama Bin Laden post 9/11 and the real role of Pakistan. Lead story in today’s Dawn: Al Qaeda founder Osama bin Laden moved to Pakistan in 2002, a few months after US started large-scale air strikes on Afghanistan, particularly in the Tora Bora region, during its anti-Taliban war…
What happened that night in Kandahar when US solider committed massacre?
Australian TV SBS Dateline travelled to the site and investigated:
Destroying Afghanistan one freedom bomb at a time
After 9/11, the West invaded Afghanistan under the guise of eradicating terrorism and helping its poor people. Years later, this is our legacy: The Afghan government should release the approximately 400 women and girls imprisoned in Afghanistan for “moral crimes,” Human Rights Watch said in a new report released today. The United States and other…
What we do to Afghans every week is terrorism
Michael Hastings: They say [the shooter] has a traumatic brain injury. But what we see on a weekly basis is”¦Afghans being killed. It happens because we have 100,000 troops in Khandahar who know that we’re leaving”¦ If he’s insane, he’s a symptom of an insane policy.
State of the Taliban 2012
Fascinating insights, published by Matthieu Atkins in GQ: This month’s issue of… GQ… contains an… exclusive account of the 20-hour assault on the U.S. embassy in Kabul last September. As the article shows, the attack—though militarily unsuccessful—was a public relations victory for the Taliban. In February,… excerpts from a classified NATO report were leaked… in the press that further undermined…
Pre 9/11, Pakistan knew a thing or two about private occupation
What a fascinating piece of history, via the Washington Post, and an indication that mercenaries and private contractors have been part of war well before the “war on terror”: As U.S.-funded Afghan jihadists battled the Soviets in the late 1980s, the unassuming American-run bar in this ancient frontier city bulged with gossiping foreigners. Today, with…