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By Richard Schickel
By Catherine Lutz
$17.28
$18
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Wikimedia Commons / The White House
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By Juan Cole — Once again, the erratic president of Afghanistan had U.S. officials shaking their heads in disbelief after he gave a speech in which he blamed the interactions of the U.S. and the Taliban for his country’s security problems.
Posted on Mar 11, 2013
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Flickr / U.S. Marine Corps Official Page
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Ahead of policy deliberations in Washington, U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates argued for a modest approach to the U.S. troop drawdown in Afghanistan that will begin next month. He favors the removal of support forces in a strategy that would leave as much “combat power” in place as possible until the war’s end.
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Wikimedia Commons / U.S. State Department
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Richard Holbrooke was apparently preoccupied with his role as the Obama administration’s special envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan until the very end, discussing the ongoing conflicts in those two countries up until he went into surgery for the heart problem that led to his death Monday.
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Pavel Constantin, Cagle Cartoons, Romania —
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Taylor Jones, Cagle Cartoons, Politicalcartoons.com —
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AP / Evan Vucci
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By Robert Scheer — Hillary Clinton should cut out the whining about what the Obama administration derides as “stolen cables” and confront the unpleasant truths they reveal about the contradictions of U.S. foreign policy and her own troubling performance.
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White House / Pete Souza
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By Stanley Kutler — Enter President Karzai. Like Ngo Dinh Diem in South Vietnam, he has held power as a result of corrupt elections, featuring the not-so-invisible hands of his American backers. Once again, we have bet the mortgage on one leader, no matter how inept and corrupt he might be.
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Patrick Chappatte, Cagle Cartoons, The International Herald Tribune —
Posted on Oct 11, 2010
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Wikimedia Commons
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In your face, foreign community! Afghan President Hamid Karzai has begun dissolving foreign private security companies, including the firm formerly known as Blackwater, as he moves to make good on a promise to ban the private contractors by year’s end.
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Wikimedia Commons
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At the same time that Afghan President Hamid Karzai organizes a nationwide council to try to broker peace with Taliban insurgents, the U.K.‘s senior military commander forecasts that violence in Afghanistan will get worse before it gets better.
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No doubt Gen. David Petraeus had a certain Rolling Stone interview in mind when he conducted a lengthy interview, which aired Sunday, with “Meet the Press” anchor David Gregory about his hopes, fears and prognosis about the war in Afghanistan.
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White House / Lawrence Jackson
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With civilian casualties in Afghanistan up sharply this year, President Hamid Karzai has asked President Obama for a “strategic review” of the way the war there is being fought.
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U.S. Army / Staff Sgt. Susan Wilt
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The House has decided not to approve some $4 billion in aid to Afghanistan after The Wall Street Journal reported that the country’s notoriously corrupt government has secretly flown billions of dollars in U.S. aid and drug money to “safe havens abroad.”
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Wikimedia Commons / The White House
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Rumors are swirling in Afghanistan that the country’s president, Hamid Karzai, has lost faith in the ability of the West to defeat the Taliban, and some are even accusing Karzai of trying to strike his own deal with the Taliban and archrival Pakistan.
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By William Pfaff — Even though Barack Obama writes that America cannot allow the burdens of the 21st century to “fall on American shoulders alone,” he similarly cannot accept that the United States deviate from the globalist ambitions emphasized in the published strategies of both the Bush and Obama administrations.
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DoD / Cherie Cullen
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A professional kidnapper and Taliban commander was released from an Afghan prison 10 years early and may have won a hush-hush pardon from Afghan President Hamid Karzai, the BBC reports. Karzai’s people say the president “could not recall the matter.”
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White House / Pete Souza
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By William Pfaff — Washington once again finds itself dangerously entangled with the hostile policies, nationalistic interests and supporters, and personal ambitions of a foreign figure whom it counted on to serve American interests.
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Peter Galbraith, the former U.N. envoy who claims he was fired for trying to confront the election fraud in Afghanistan, says of Hamid Karzai: “In fact, some of the palace insiders say that he has a certain fondness for some of Afghanistan’s most profitable exports.” (video after the jump)
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Flickr / Truthout.org by Troy Page; adapted by Mr. Wright
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President Obama arrived in Kabul on Sunday on a surprise visit to Afghanistan, where he is expected to address U.S. troops as well as put pressure on Afghan President Hamid Karzai to step up the fight against corruption and drug trafficking.
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Wikimedia Commons / The White House
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Afghan President Hamid Karzai has tepidly announced he is pondering introducing conscription in order to build a domestic army and police force capable of taking over security operations from NATO troops in his war-torn country.
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By William Pfaff — President Obama’s failures in Israel and elsewhere abroad have astonished the international public and left in despair those Americans who can scarcely believe that a whole year has been irresponsibly wasted.
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Wikimedia Commons / The White House
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It looks as if Afghan President Hamid Karzai’s Cabinet strategy is still in desperate need of repair. The majority of his nominees have once again been rejected by the parliament, casting doubt on his ability to lead in the country’s fractious political environment.
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AP / Farzana Wahidy
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Hamid Karzai is having issues in his second term as Afghanistan’s president. It seems that the Afghan parliament has nixed 17 of his 24 Cabinet nominees.
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If an athlete is caught cheating in the Olympics or another sports competition, that person is disqualified, and it is seen as a disgrace. In the case of the recent election in Afghanistan, however, cheating has been rewarded and even praised by no less than the president of the United States, says Link TV’s Jamal Dajani in this week’s “Mosaic Intelligence Report.”
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irfwp.org
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Afghanistan may be nearing yet another political crisis as officials fear that President Hamid Karzai will not accept results of an investigation outlining massive fraud in the country’s presidential elections two months ago. The inquiry is expected to drop Karzai’s vote total to under 50 percent, requiring a runoff election.
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U.S. Army / Staff Sgt. Ken Denny
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A former U.N. diplomat has attacked the process and results of the recent Afghan elections, claiming that almost one in three votes cast for incumbent President Hamid Karzai was fraudulent and that the elections seriously weakened the democratic process in the eyes of the Afghan people. As a consequence, the Taliban is stronger, says Peter Galbraith, who was fired in a dispute over the voting.
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blog.wired.com
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By William Pfaff — Last September, during the American presidential campaign, I wrote a column declaring that the United States had again invaded Cambodia, only this time “Cambodia” was Pakistan. President George W. Bush had ordered U.S. ground attacks on the Taliban inside Pakistan’s Tribal Territories, without Pakistan’s authorization.
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By Marie Cocco — Afghanistan’s women are no longer in vogue. President Karzai has just signed a law that forces them to obey their husbands’ sexual demands and in general again consigns them to lives of brutal repression.
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By William Pfaff — Exactly what do we think we are doing in Afghanistan and Pakistan? Are we there to liberalize their forms of religious observance, or conduct a war over theology, or establish permanent NATO bases there, or are we searching for Osama bin Laden? It seems that we are doing all of these things at the same time. But why?
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AP photo / Rahmat Gul
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By Robert Fisk — The collapse of Afghanistan is closer than the world believes. Kandahar is in Taliban hands—all but a square mile at the centre of the city—and the first Taliban checkpoints are scarcely 15 miles from Kabul.
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AP photo / Anjum Naveed
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Asif Ali Zardari, widower of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, assumed the presidency of Pakistan on Tuesday, concluding a transfer of power that began with the resignation of former President Pervez Musharraf just two weeks ago. Zardari’s presidency is likely to be one of conflict, as an ongoing Taliban resurgence and a 26 percent approval rating already riddle his first days in office.
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AP photo / Fraidoon Pooyaa
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Cell-phone footage shot by a doctor in a makeshift morgue in Azizabad, Afghanistan, showing rows of dead Afghan civilians, including several children, has led to a renewed inquiry into an American-led airstrike that occurred on Aug. 22. American officials had previously insisted that only seven civilians had been killed in the attack, but they’re now having to face the possibility that the actual figure could be as high as 90.
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AP photo / Jae C. Hong
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Before leaving Kabul for Baghdad, Barack Obama spoke to his intention to increase America’s troop commitment to Afghanistan by 10,000 soldiers. “We have to understand that the situation is precarious and urgent ... and I believe this has to be the central focus, the central front, in the battle against terrorism,” the candidate told CBS.
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AP photo
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Barack Obama embarked on his international diplomacy tour—a key step in raising his profile on the world stage and demonstrating his readiness to take over the American presidency—with an important first major stop. The Illinois senator landed in Kabul, Afghanistan, on Saturday as part of congressional delegation surveying the current situation in that troubled nation.
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AP photos / Pajhwok News Agency
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Details have emerged about Monday’s deadly blast at the Indian Embassy in Kabul, Afghanistan, raising suspicion that the bombing was done by Pakistani militants associated with the Taliban. The fact that the Indian Embassy was targeted is one substantial indication, considering the long-standing conflict between India and Pakistan. The blast killed 41 and injured over 130.
Posted on Jul 7, 2008
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It’s been more than six years since the invasion of Afghanistan but, as this Mosaic Intelligence Report illustrates, it looks like the Taliban is actually getting stronger and bolder—as evidenced by the recent Taliban-led prison break at Kandahar’s Sarposa Prison. Could 2008 be the Year of the Taliban?
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AP photo / Allauddin Khan
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A nighttime raid on Kandahar’s Sarposa Prison, carried out by Taliban operatives Friday, led to the escape of 1,200 prisoners, including around 400 Taliban members. The attack represented a serious security challenge in the Afghan city that’s considered the traditional home of the country’s leaders and the Taliban’s spiritual center.
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Sayed Parwez Kaambakhsh, a 23-year-old Afghan student, has been sentenced to death for blasphemy because of an article he downloaded from the Internet. The verdict has aroused outrage around the world, and top U.S. and European officials have spoken with the Afghan government. However, some worry that international pressure could back Afghan President Hamid Karzai and the nation’s religious fundamentalists into a corner and therefore ensure that the execution is carried out.
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Joining forces for a press conference at Camp David on Monday, President Bush and Afghan President Hamid Karzai refused the Taliban’s proposal for a prisoner swap. The Taliban says it will free the 21 surviving South Korean Christians kidnapped in Afghanistan on July 19 if captive Taliban members are released.
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By Robert Fisk — The Independent’s Middle East correspondent looks into the current state of “Palestine” and the West’s complicated—and contradictory—relations with the region and its leaders.
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Afghan President Hamad Karzai is warning foreign troops that more civilian deaths would seriously compromise Afghan citizens’ support (such as it is) for NATO-affiliated forces in their country.
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The Taliban, once a powerful and oppressive presence in Afghanistan, does not “have the guts” to face down the government, Afghan President Hamid Karzai told the BBC. The real problem that needs attention in his country, Karzai said, is the ever-rising civilian death toll.
Posted on Jun 21, 2007
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irfwp.org
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Afghan President Hamid Karzai berated foreign military leaders after local police reported roughly 50 civilian deaths, including women and children, from a U.S.-led operation. He told the top brass his people’s patience was “wearing thin.” The U.S. says it is not aware of any civilian deaths, but a U.N. team investigated and found the report credible.
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An American air raid on Monday is said to have killed nine civilians in Afghanistan, a day after gunfire in the country’s Nangarhar region caused more than 10 civilian deaths.
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By Christian Parenti — With the resurgence of the Taliban, women in Afghanistan are once again rated by the United Nations as being “among the worst-off in the world.” Learn more about their plight in the companion piece to Christian Parenti’s larger article, “Afghan Autopsy.”
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Afghan authorities are planning on releasing the man who faced the death penalty for converting to Christianity, but they will base the action on a technicality. So a showdown with the U.S. still looms.
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