"At least 10,000 people have been killed in the conflict, and seven million are in dire need of food assistance. The US began supporting the Saudi-led coalition through a decision by then-US President Barack Obama, who cited the Authorisation for Use of Military Force (AUMF) to justify US involvement. Since taking office, President Donald Trump has done the same."
"Trump previously loosened CIA drone strike rules in Afghanistan that will now allow for some civilian casualties relative to the importance of the target. 'We’ll be here as long as it takes until you change your mind,' Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said recently in a message to the Taliban."
"The 'America First' foreign policy Trump promised during the campaign is just a memory, and his baffled supporters are left to contemplate the most brazen betrayal in modern American political history."
"The war in Afghanistan has long been an out-of-sight, out-of-mind affair for the American public. To relegate Afghan lives to the mercy of an even less visible force will be to write them off altogether." Continue reading →
"Obama signed off on a surge that ended with 100,000 U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan. His generals also promised to break the stalemate. Today, the Taliban controls more of the country than it has since 2001. Why are we still there? We went into Afghanistan after 9/11 to get Osama bin Laden and to punish the Taliban for harboring al-Qaeda. Now bin Laden is dead; al-Qaeda is dispersed; the Taliban has been battered. The United Nations reports that there were more than 11,000 war-related civilian casualties last year, and 660,000 Afghans were displaced, adding to the country’s massive refugee crisis. The war has now cost us over $1 trillion, making it the second-costliest U.S. war." Continue reading →
"Afghan authorities have accused NATO forces of killing 16 civilians, including four children, in a drone strike targeting Taliban militants in the country’s Kunar province on the border with Pakistan. The incident occurred on Saturday when NATO drones destroyed a pickup truck with civilians inside after its driver agreed to give a lift to Taliban insurgents, provincial governor Shuja ul Mulk Jalala said. According to UN data, over 1,000 civilians were killed in Afghanistan in the first half of 2013 and another 2,000 injured. This is a 23 percent increase in comparison with the same period last year." Continue reading →
"A US envoy on Tuesday dismissed suggestions that Washington would withdraw all troops from Afghanistan after next year, saying that both countries wanted to preserve a smaller force. Aides to US President Barack Obama earlier this year openly mulled the so-called 'zero option' of a complete withdrawal from Afghanistan once US troops end their combat role in 2014. 'We talk about the zero option — that’s not an option for the United States,' said James Dobbins, the US special envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan. Dobbins said he expected 'several thousand American forces and several thousand non-American NATO forces' in 2015 and beyond." Continue reading →
"A Soviet soldier who disappeared more than 30 years ago on the battlefield in Afghanistan has been found alive and well and living under the name of Sheikh Abdullah in the western Afghan city of Herat. According to officials, local residents rescued Khakimov from the battlefield and treated his wounds with herbs. The Soviet soldier remained with the man who helped him, and acquired medical skills. Khakimov – an ethnic Uzbek, originally from Samarkand – married a local Afghan woman and settled in the Shindand district. His wife later died. The couple had no children. Some 264 Soviet soldiers who fought in the 1979-1989 war in Afghanistan are still missing." Continue reading →
"Western imperialism and its terrorist puppet regimes in this vast region over two centuries have produced an immense, exploding cauldron of rage against the puppets and the imperialists. The people have returned to their Muslim roots to give them hope and strength to endure the terrible wars they must fight for decades to rid their ancient homelands of these imperialists. The U.S. is sinking into an immense cauldron of Holy War against a billion Muslims and is fighting them with mercenary troops who for the most part believe in nothing but their pay-checks and retirement perks. It may even take a century of terrible war, but the outcome seems obvious." Continue reading →
"Afghanistan has no resources, has no treaties with the U.S., no historic ties, there are none of the flimsy but popular excuses that we have used for over a century to throw our weight around across the earth. But here we go, intervening anyway, loudly proclaiming that Russia’s actions in Afghanistan are 'unacceptable', and for which we are ready to scrap SALT, detente, and the feeble past attempts of the Carter administration to shuck off the Cold War. The conservatives, the Pentagon, the Social Democrats, the neo-conservatives, the Coalition for a Democratic Majority [..] have been yearning to smash detente, and to accelerate an already swollen arms budget and heat up the Cold War." Continue reading →