Afghanistan, Another Untold Story. Since feudal times the landholding system in Afghanistan had remained unchanged, with more than 75 percent of the land owned by big landlords who comprised only 3 percent of the rural population. In the mid-1960s, democratic revolutionary elements coalesced to form the People’s Democratic Party (PDP). In 1973, the king was deposed, but the government that replaced him proved to be autocratic, mismanaged, and unpopular.
It in turn was forced out in 1978 after a massive demonstration in front of the presidential palace, and after factions of the army intervened on the side of the demonstrators. The military officers who took charge invited the PDP to form a new government under the leadership of Noor Mohammed Taraki, a poet and novelist. This is how a Marxist-led coalition of national democratic forces came into office. “It was a totally indigenous happening. The government also continued a campaign begun by the king to emancipate women from their age-old tribal bondage. Afghanistan: The Long, Hard Road to the 2014 Transition. [The following report was issued by International Crisis Group on 8 October 2012.] Afghanistan: The Long, Hard Road to the 2014 Transition Executive Summary Plagued by factionalism and corruption, Afghanistan is far from ready to assume responsibility for security when U.S. and NATO forces withdraw in 2014.
That makes the political challenge of organising a credible presidential election and transfer of power from President Karzai to a successor that year all the more daunting. A repeat of previous elections’ chaos and chicanery would trigger a constitutional crisis, lessening the chances that the present political dispensation can survive the transition. In the current environment, prospects for clean elections and a smooth transition are slim.
Institutional rivalries, conflicts over local authority, and clashes over the role of Islam in governance have caused the country to lurch from one constitutional crisis to the next for nearly a decade. Recommendations To the Parliament: Afghanistan's Political Parties and where they come from (1902-2006) Massacres are the Inevitable Result of Foreign Occupation. It was an "isolated incident", US officials insisted. The murder of 16 Afghan civilians as they slept, Hillary Clinton declared, was the "inexplicable act" of one soldier. And as Barack Obama and David Cameron prepared to put a public gloss on an earlier end to Nato's "lead combat" mission in Afghanistan, the US secretary of state pledged to continue "protecting the Afghan people".
Afghan villagers during a prayer ceremony for victims of Sunday's killing of civilians, apparently by a lone US soldier, in Panjwai. (Photograph: Allauddin Khan/AP) After a decade of ever more degraded Nato occupation, who could conceivably wish for such protection? The slaughter of innocents in Panjwai, nine of them children, follows the eruption of killings and protests after US troops burned copies of the Qur'an last month. That came soon after the exposure of video of US marines urinating on dead Afghans. The evidence surrounding the Panjwai massacre is so far contradictory. Where is the "good war" now? Book burning: When history repeats itself. New York, NY - Book burning seems to be making history once again. The inadvertent and partial incineration of some Qurans by a US-Afghan labour detail at Bagram ignited a web of action, from Kabul to the media circuits of the Republican Party presidential primaries.
Many lives were entangled, and some were taken, including those of at least six US soldiers. Even the dead were ensnared. In Libya, the graves of British soldiers from the Second World War were vandalised. Of course, it is not the torching of holy books on its own that generates these effects around the world. It is worth reflecting on the help provided by the overall situation, and by other actors and forces. Crucially, we should think about what we do not see, what is obscured, when we frame and name events as Quran burning - as protesting about it, apologising for it, or writing news stories about it.
Afghans are not just protesting burned books, but the fact that it was a foreign, occupying army that did the burning.
To sort... US / Afghanistan relations... Afghanistan: Violating the prime directive again. Bagram, Obama's Gitmo. On President Barack Obama’s second day in office, one of the three executive orders he signed was a commitment to close the detention facility on the naval base at Guantánamo Bay as soon as possible but no later than one year thence.
An inter-agency task force headed by White House counsel Greg Craig was established to come up with a plan. The new administration did not anticipate that this step would be controversial because, at the time, closing Guantánamo had bipartisan support, including from former President George W. Bush and Republican presidential contender Sen. John McCain. Bagram, the main US-controlled prison in Afghanistan, on the other hand, was being expanded -- like the war in that country. Many of the problems that had earned Guantánamo its excoriating nickname “the legal black hole” and made it an international symbol of injustice, like denial of habeas corpus, indefinite detention and abusive interrogation techniques, are features of Bagram. Enter Bagram Exposing Bagram.
Afghanistan – touch down in flight. THE ROVING EYE : Taliban deliver hammer blow to NATO. THE ROVING EYE Taliban deliver hammer blow to NATO By Pepe Escobar Spin masters from Washington to Brussels to Kabul are bound for many a sleepless night. World public opinion has been relentlessly shocked and awed by the chimera that the United States and North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) are "winning" the AfPak combo war. Now for the facts on the ground. Immediately after the US government decided to "suspend" US$800 million in aid to the Pakistan army, Pakistan Defense Minister Ahmed Mukhtar told local Express TV channel, "If at all things become difficult, we will just get all our forces back" - hinting there would be no more troops from Islamabad fighting Pashtun-majority guerrillas in the tribal areas. Mukhtar couldn't have been more explicit; "If Americans refuse to give us money, then okay ...
This graphically shows, once again, the Pakistani army is - reluctantly - playing Washington's counter-terrorism/counter-insurgency game in the tribal areas. Major discovery: a purpose of the war in Afghanistan - Glenn Greenwald. The Washington Post today describes the failure of regimented programs in Afghanistan to reintegrate Taliban teenagers (“Taliban” (alt.: “Terrorist”) means “any Afghan who fights against the presence of foreign military forces in their country” and “reintegrate” means “persuading or compelling them to passively acquiesce to those forces”): The teenage insurgents spend their days learning to make shoes and bookshelves, listening to religious leaders denounce the radical interpretation of Islam they learned as children.
But when they return to their cells at Kabul’s juvenile rehabilitation center, the boys with wispy beards and cracking voices talk only of the holy war from which they were plucked and their plans to resume fighting for the Taliban. As the Taliban presses its efforts to recruit teenage fighters, Afghan officials and their international backers have crafted a program to reintegrate the country’s youngest insurgents into mainstream society.
No Escape from Empire’s Graveyard - Brahma Chellaney. Exit from comment view mode. Click to hide this space NEW DELHI – With the stage set for secret talks in Qatar between the United States and the Taliban, US President Barack Obama’s strategy for a phased exit from war-ravaged Afghanistan is now being couched in nice-sounding terms that hide more than they reveal. In seeking a Faustian bargain with the Taliban, Obama risks repeating US policy mistakes that now haunt regional and international security. Since coming to office, Obamahas pursued an Afghan strategy that can be summed up in three words: surge, bribe, and run. The military mission has now entered the “run” part, or what euphemistically is being called the “transition to 2014.”
The central objective is to cut a deal with the Taliban so that the US and its NATO partners exit the “graveyard of empires” without losing face. Yet what stands out is how little the US has learned from the past.