It seems that from being a direct colony of the world’s top superpower, Afghanistan will now be subject to competition for influence by other global powers.
By THE AFGHAN YOUTH PEACE VOLUNTEERS War is a crime / Truthout.org The Afghan Youth Peace Volunteers question the presumption that the U.S. military strategy in Afghanistan is necessary for American or Afghan peace. Tragedies like the Kandahar killing spree which...
The airstrike that killed 24 Pakistani soldiers is just the latest in a series of mistakes that raise doubts about NATO's credibility By PRATAP CHATTERJEE Commondreams.org Why did NATO forces kill two dozen Pakistani soldiers at a border post in the Mohmand region,...
Obama should be held accountable for vastly expanding the military establishment's worldwide license to kill. By FRED BRANFMAN Alternet Although President's Obama's partial Afghan troop withdrawal announcement has received more attention, his June 29 "National...
By KATHY KELLY Commondreams.org International Posted by Bulatlat.com The Obama administration has announced the imminent release of a December Review which will evaluate the U.S. troop presence in Afghanistan. The military has yet to disclose what the specific...
By ALEXANDER COCKBURN http://www.counterpunch.org/ Posted by Bulatlat.com The last American combat brigade in Iraq has left the country, so the Pentagon announced this week. The 40,000 personnel from 4th Stryker Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division began crossing into...
By Tom Engelhardt Posted by Bulatlat.com Consider the following statement offered by Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, at a news conference last week. He was discussing Julian Assange, the founder of Wikileaks as well as the person who has...
By NICK DAVIES and DAVID LEIGH The Guardian UK/Commondreams.org Posted by Bulatlat A huge cache of secret US military files today provides a devastating portrait of the failing war in Afghanistan, revealing how coalition forces have killed hundreds of civilians in...
By TOM ENGELHARDT Posted by Bulatlat.com History, or the future (however you want to look at it), has a funny way of rearing up and biting leaders who think they know what they're doing. Take Barack Obama. Only weeks before the Deepwater Horizon oil rig exploded in...
By TOM ENGELHARDT Truthout International Posted by Bulatlat.com Back in 2007, when General David Petraeus was the surge commander of U.S. forces in Iraq, he had a penchant for clock imagery. In an interview in April of that year, he typically said: “I'm conscious...
By JEFFREY KAYE Truthout International Posted by Bulatlat.com Two reports coming out of Afghanistan illustrate the depth of hypocrisy and subterfuge characterizing the US/NATO intervention in that country. One could cite a myriad of such examples, so immoral and...
By TOM ENGELHARDT & NICK TURSE Common Dreams.org International Posted by Bulatlat It was a Christmas and New Year's from hell for American intelligence, that $75 billion labyrinth of at least 16 major agencies and a handful of minor ones. As the old year was...
By VIJAY PRASHAD CounterPunch International More US troops are being prepared for Afghanistan. The President charged them with (1) defeating or degrading the Taliban; (2) building the Afghan National Army. We have thrown in our lot with Hamid Karzai's government....
By MELVIN A. GOODMAN Truthout International Logistics will be the key to introducing 30,000 soldiers and Marines into Afghanistan in the next six to seven months and to confronting the Taliban over the next 18 months. This reflects an old saying in the military -...
By EUGENE ROBINSON Truthout International Posted by Bulatlat.com WASHINGTON – The most dreadful burden of the presidency - the power to send men and women to die for their country - seems to weigh heavily on Barack Obama these days. He went to Dover Air Force Base...
By BYARD DUNCAN AlterNet International Posted by (Bulatlat.com) On Sept. 1, conservative columnist George Will published a seemingly out-of-nowhere, eye-popping op-ed for the Washington Post titled, "Time to Get out of Afghanistan." The piece, which called for "a...
By RAY MCGOVERN truthout International Posted by (Bulatlat.com) I'm going to ask for my money back. I've seen this Afghanistan movie before. The first time, Vietnam was in the title. As in an early scene from the Vietnam version, U.S. military officials are...
By DAHR JAMAIL truthout International Posted by Bulatlat US Army Specialist Victor Agosto served a 13-month deployment in Iraq with the 57th Expeditionary Signal Battalion. "What I did there, I know I contributed to death and human suffering," Agosto told Truthout...
By Norman Solomon Truthout/Perspective International Posted by (Bulatlat.com) The president has set a limit on the number of US troops in Afghanistan. For now. That's how escalation works. Ceilings become floors. Gradually. A few times since last fall, the Obama...
Tens of thousands of civilian contract workers from poverty-stricken countries -- among them Filipino Rey Torres (left) -- were hired to support the U.S. war effort in Iraq and Afghanistan. In case of injury or death, they are supposed to be covered by workers' compensation insurance financed by American taxpayers. But the program has failed to deliver medical care and other benefits.
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