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Afghanistan
Salir cojeando de Afganistán
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24 April 2012
La Jornada
Los dos candidatos a la presidencia de Estados Unidos parecen tratar de gritar más fuerte que el otro en lo que concierne a Irán, Siria, e Israel/Palestina. Cada uno de ellos alega que hace más por respaldar los mismos objetivos. ¿No resulta entonces extraño que al momento no haya tal contienda verbal en lo que concierne a Afganistán?
No hace mucho fuimos testigos del mismo juego demócrata-republicano en torno a Afganistán. ¿Cuál era el partido más macho? Recuerden el concepto de que una “oleada”
de tropas podría ganar la guerra, un concepto que el presidente Obama abrazó en su discurso ante la academia militar estadunidense en diciembre de 2009. Ahora, repentinamente, desde marzo de 2012, parece haberse convertido en un tema que nadie quiere impulsar en voz demasiado alta.
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"There is War in Kabul Today, Many Bombs!"
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18 April 2012
by KATHY KELLY
At the start of The Kite Runner, a novel by Khaled Hosseini later adapted for film, a brave and selflessly loyal Afghan boy runs to help his much wealthier friend, singing out his love for him “For you, a thousand times over …” They have been flying a fighting kite, (these are kites with edges sharp enough to cut the strings of another kite), and the singing boy has gone to fetch an enemy kite they have won. A dreadful betrayal ensues, its effects exacerbated horribly by the start of the U.S.-Soviet proxy war. Several decades pass before any small sort of atonement can be achieved by the book’s protagonist.
We sang that song this weekend. I was privileged to attend several actions organized by Kansas and Missouri activists, beginning at Fort Leavenworth prison, to which Bradley Manning will likely return after his current ordeal in a New Jersey military courtroom. .
Manning faces a life sentence and potentially a death sentence for the crime of informing U.S. voters and people around the world how our troops and our client governments behave when we are not meant to be looking. One partial consequence seems to have been the democracy uprising of the Arab Spring. Later, at Whiteman Air Force Base, we presented an indictment for the international war crimes that are implicit in remote-controlled killing using the kind of aerial drones that are piloted from the base. As three of our friends walked forwards with the indictment to be arrested by riot-shielded base police, we flew kites to remind ourselves that the blue sky above our heads should not be a source of fear, and we sang, “For you, a thousand times over, for you, a thousand times over…”
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Australia to end Afghan mission in 2013
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17 April 2012
Most of Australia's forces are stationed in the central province of Uruzgan [GALLO/GETTY]
Australia has announced that its troops will be withdraw from Afghanistan nearly a year ahead of a previously scheduled 2014 withdrawal date.
Julia Gillard, the Australian prime minster, said on Tuesday that most of 1,550 remaining Australian troops in Afghanistan were expected to return home by the end of 2013.
That timetable would see the largest force provided by any nation outside of the NATO alliance leave the country a year ahead of the proposed December 2014 withdrawal date for all international forces.
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La masacre en Afganistán no fue locura
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19 March 2012
Robert Fisk
La Jornada
Empieza a cansarme este cuento del soldado demente
. Era predecible, por supuesto. No bien el sargento de 38 años que masacró el domingo pasado a 16 civiles afganos, entre ellos nueve niños, cerca de Kandahar, regresó a su base, ya los expertos en defensa y los chicos y chicas de los centros de pensamiento
anunciaban que había enloquecido
. No era un perverso terrorista sin entrañas –como sería, desde luego, si hubiera sido afgano, en especial talibán–, sino sólo un tipo que se volvió loco.
Esa misma tontería se usó para describir a los soldados estadunidenses homicidas que perpetraron una orgía de sangre en la ciudad iraquí de Haditha. Con la misma palabra se describió al soldado israelí Baruch Goldstein, quien masacró a 25 palestinos en Hebrón, algo que hice notar en este mismo periódico apenas unas horas antes de que el sargento enloqueciera
de pronto en la provincia de Kandahar.
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Suicide blasts at Shia shrine in Afghanistan
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06 December 2011
Two separate bomb blasts have hit Shia Muslim shrines in Afghanistan as hundreds of people gathered to mark the day of Ashura, causing at least 24 casualties, according to Afghan police and media reports.
A security official speaking on condition of anonymity told the AFP news agency that a suicide bomber had detonated explosives at the gate of the shrine in Kabul on Tuesday morning, killing at least 20.
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Special Ops in Obama-time
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04 November 2011
by GARETH PORTER
U.S. Special Operations Forces (SOF) killed well over 1,500 civilians in night raids in less than 10 months in 2010 and early 2011, analysis of official statistics on the raids released by the U.S.-NATO command reveals.
That number would make U.S. night raids by far the largest cause of civilian casualties in the war in Afghanistan. The report by the U.N. Assistance Mission in Afghanistan on civilian casualties in 2010 had said the use of Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs) by insurgents was the leading cause of civilian deaths, with 904.
Except for a relatively few women and children killed by accident, the civilians who died in the raids were all adult males who were counted as insurgents in press releases and official data released by the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF).
The data on night raids, which were given to selected news media, cover three distinct 90-day night raid campaigns from May through July 2010, early August to early November, and mid-November to mid- February. The combined totals for the three periods indicate that a minimum of 2,599 rank and file insurgents were killed and an additional 723 “leaders” killed or captured in raids. Assuming conservatively that one-third of the alleged leaders were killed, the total number of alleged insurgents killed in the raids was 2,844.
SOF night raids during the 10-month period totaled 6,282, according to the same ISAF data.
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Karzai in India on crucial visit
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04 October 2011
The talks in New Delhi could include training for Afghan forces, which might strain ties with Pakistan further [Reuters]
Hamid Karzai, the Afghan president, has arrived in New Delhi on a two-day visit described by India as an opportunity for both countries to consolidate their strategic partnership and discuss bilateral, regional and international issues of mutual concern.
Tuesday's visit comes against a backdrop of shifting relations in the region.
During his second trip to the Indian capital this year, Karzai will meet Manmohan Singh, the Indian prime minister, and sign several strategic agreements, including some on development aid and security.
Some analysts in India predict that Karzai will elevate the role of India in stabilising his violence-torn country as he eyes a drawdown of US-led troops by 2014 after more than a decade of fighting.
They argue that Karzai is losing patience with Pakistan, whom he accuses of funding anti-government groups, and is unable to count on the US.
"Karzai's visit comes at a crucial juncture to endorse India's involvement in Afghanistan," Saeed Naqvi from the Observer Research Foundation think-tank told the AFP news agency.
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NATO-led forces secure Kabul after attacks
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14 September 2011
A 20-hour standoff with NATO and Afghan forces ended with six Taliban fighters killed on Wednesday [AFP]
Afghan and NATO forces have ended their assault on Taliban fighters, 20 hours after the group launched co-ordinated attacks in Kabul, targeting NATO's headquarters, the US embassy and the Afghan intelligence agency.
At least three policemen, four civilians and six Taliban fighters were killed and many others injured in the attack and the ensuring security operation, Afghan police and hospital sources said Wednesday.
Taliban launch co-ordinated attacks in Kabul
Fighters were holed up in a high-rise building near Kabul's diplomatic district throughout the night, as NATO helicopters circled overhead trying to flush them out. The attackers were using the building asa base from which to fire rockets at the US embassy and NATO headquarters.
By Wednesday morning, all the fighters had been killed, the sources said.
"The last attackers are dead and the fighting all over. There were six terrorists in the building and all are dead," Siddiq Siddiqi, an interior ministry spokesman, told AFP news agency.
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Taliban remains strong ten years on
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12 September 2011
Robert D. Crews
A moralistic approach to the war has had far-reaching negative effects on Afghan politics and society [GALLO/GETTY]
Afghanistan in 2011 is far cry from the country that the architects of America's war there had imagined ten years ago. The Taliban movement, which seemed likely to melt away with little resistance in 2001, has survived and now dominates much of rural Afghanistan where insurgents make their presence felt at will.
Since 2009, security incidents - Improvised explosive devices, ambushes, suicide attacks, and assassinations - have frequently numbered more than one thousand per month. A decade after the US-led intervention, the grave humanitarian crisis caused by more than thirty years of war persists.
More than five million Afghan refugees have returned home since the collapse of the Taliban regime. Yet they have confronted life in a country where, despite the influx of tens of billions of dollars in aid, three quarters of the population still lives below or just slightly above the poverty line.
Only one quarter of residents have access to clean water. According to the UN, 60 per cent of Afghan women face physical and psychological violence. Afghanistan ranks second in the world in maternal mortality and third in infant mortality. So far this year, fighting between insurgents and coalition forces has claimed some 1500 civilian lives and swelled the numbers of internally displaced civilians to several hundred thousand.
Despite ten years of US and NATO military involvement and state-building directed by the US, many Afghans fear that the Taliban are poised to return to power following the American troop withdrawal scheduled for 2014.
A cause that most Americans supported in 2001 when, in their minds, it was a just war to avenge the damage and loss of 9/11, to vanquish a barbaric foe, and to liberate women - has long since lost its luster in the US. However, there is still little space in American politics for alternative views on the war.
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"Reescribiendo" la ocupación de Afganistán
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23 August 2011
Nima Shirazi
Wide Asleep in America
Traducido del inglés para Rebelión por Germán Leyens
“Estoy convencido de que la matanza bajo el manto de la guerra no es otra cosa que un acto de asesinato”.
Albert Einstein
El sábado 6 de agosto de 2011, un helicóptero de transporte militar Chinook estadounidense fue derribado en Afganistán, matando a 30 soldados estadounidenses, incluidos 17 SEAL de elite de la Armada y ocho afganos. Los medios noticiosos dominantes estuvieron repletos de sombrías informaciones sobre el “día más mortífero” para las fuerzas estadounidenses desde el comienzo de la invasión y ocupación de Afganistán.
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More Articles...
- Karzai calls for fewer US raids
- Afghanistan: Taliban insurgents in attack on Nato base
- Taliban peace talks with Hamid Karzai are 'mostly hype'
- Taliban Elite, Aided by NATO, Join Talks for Afghan Peace
- Little hope for Afghan peace council
- Security contractors in Afghanistan 'fund Taliban
- US and Afghan governments make contact with Haqqani insurgents
- Karzai sets up body for peace talks
- Violence and corruption still dog Afghan elections
- Afghan Votes Come Cheap, and Often in Bulk
