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Thinking Tuna Fish, Talking Death
By Robert Scheer
Hardcover $13.16
by John Micklethwait and Adrian Wooldridge
$18.45
$19
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AP photo / Musa Khan
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The Taliban, which sponsored al-Qaida, is alive and well on both sides of the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan and, following last week’s Red Mosque showdown in Pakistan, pro-Taliban militants are retaliating by breaking a 10-month truce and unleashing violence in the country’s northern region.
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According to an ABC News report, Taliban military officer Mansour Dadullah claims that plans are in the works for large-scale terror attacks. Dadullah delivered his ominous message to a reporter in Pakistan, where al-Qaida and Taliban operatives are said to be gaining in strength and numbers.
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AP Photo/Anthony Harvey
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Due to his “Taliban-like beard,” rock group Metallica’s frontman, James Hetfield, was detained at the Luton Airport in London on Thursday. On his way to play at the Live Earth concert, the California-born Hetfield was interrogated by officials who suspected he was a terrorist. Fortunately, he was able to convince authorities that he was actually a rock star rather than a member of al-Qaeda.
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A tragic milestone has been marked in Afghanistan: The number of civilian deaths attributed to American- and NATO-led forces in the last half-year has outstripped the number caused by insurgents.
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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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Afghan forces retook a district in Kandahar province that had been captured by the Taliban. The Afghan forces said they had made a tactical decision to withdraw, but the Taliban said it captured the district outright after days of battle. Either way, the former ruling fundamentalists of Afghanistan appear less than beaten.
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Afghan police say U.S.-led troops opened fire on a security post, killing seven police officers. The U.S. military has acknowledged the skirmish, but said it was responding to an attack and did not confirm the Afghan casualties. The Red Cross has described worsening security in Afghanistan as “a very worrying situation.”
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Five Americans, a Canadian and a Briton died in a helicopter crash in Afghanistan on Wednesday, apparently shot down by a resurgent Taliban. The grim news from what some have called “the forgotten war” in Afghanistan comes amid mounting casualty reports from Iraq.
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An Afghan official said civilian homes were bombed in an air raid led by U.S. troops in the country’s Sangin district Wednesday. Tragically, this latest reported incident is not an isolated occurrence in the battle zones of Afghanistan.
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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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Human Rights Watch issued the sobering news Monday that 2006 was the deadliest year in terms of civilian casualties in Afghanistan since the fall of the Taliban. Almost 700 deaths are linked to insurgent groups—and of that number about two-thirds resulted from suicide bombings—while 230 more have been chalked up to NATO-led troops.
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With all the recent, and widespread, bloodshed in Iraq, the ongoing struggle in Afghanistan can at times be overshadowed. According to the BBC, the Taliban may be behind the deaths of six NATO soldiers in south Afghanistan this weekend.
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The Tillman family and members of Congress expressed disappointment at the story presented by the Pentagon on Monday during a briefing regarding the investigations into the death of Pat Tillman and the subsequent military cover-up. Read details of the report here.
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An outbreak of violence in Pakistan has killed more than 50 people since Monday, according to the BCC. Militants connected to the Afghan Taliban in the country’s northwest region have been battling tribesmen.
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By Marie Cocco — The war in Iraq continues to divert attention from the mess in Afghanistan, where a resurgent Taliban challenges a half-hearted American effort with increasing boldness.
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An American convoy suffered a militant ambush on a crowded Afghan highway Sunday, after which U.S. forces opened fire. Up to 16 civilians were killed and as many as 34 wounded in the chaos that followed. The U.S. military says it is possible that militants were responsible for the deaths, but one witness said U.S. soldiers fired on his car after he had pulled over to let them through.
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A raid in the Pakistani city of Quetta early this week reportedly resulted in the capture of Taliban Defense Minister Mullah Obaidullah Akhund and other suspects. Officials said the arrest occurred as Vice President Dick Cheney was passing through the country’s southwestern region.
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fairgofordavid.org
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An Australian imprisoned at Guatanamo Bay for the last five years will be the first Gitmo prisoner to be tried under a new U.S. law authorizing special military trials of alleged enemy combatants. An initial hearing will be held within the month for 31-year-old David Hicks, accused of helping the Taliban combat American troops in Afghanistan.
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news.bbc.co.uk
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A suicide bomber attacked a U.S. military base in Afghanistan on Tuesday in a failed attempt to blow up Vice President Dick Cheney. The Taliban claimed responsibility for the bombing, which killed between nine and 14 people.
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By Nicholas Schmidle — Pakistan’s “madrassas” have been described as “jihad universities” because of their ties to the Taliban and Islamic extremists, but a small-scale indigenous effort to reform the religious schools could be making more progress than the combined forces of the American, British and Pakistani governments.
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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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The Feminist Majority’s Lorraine Sheinberg created the 1999 documentary that first focused attention on the Taliban’s brutal oppression of women in Afghanistan. It’s worth another look now.
Watch:
 Intro (2:15 min/2.3MB)
Whole (15.00 min/16.5MB)
Posted on Nov 28, 2006
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America began its so-called war on terror with the intention of driving the Taliban from power in Afghanistan. Five years later, the Taliban is back, Osama bin Laden is still alive, and insurgent fighters cite the U.S. presence in the country as their main wellspring of rage. How did it come to this? Truthdig contributor Christian Parenti, just back from Afghanistan, reports.
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The Nation’s Christian Parenti goes inside Taliban communities and fighting groups in this excellent article and video, which document “the mounting frustration in Afghanistan with government corruption, military occupation and a seemingly endless war.”
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flickr/TKnoxB
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The U.N. refugee agency says about 200,000 people have been displaced by fighting in southern Afghanistan as NATO forces clash with a re-energized Taliban.
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The Senate majority leader, having concluded that we can’t win a guerrilla war in Afghanistan, wants to invite the Taliban and its supporters back into the government.
So, all that talk about bringing democracy and freedom to Afghanistan ... screw it, huh? Let’s just give the place back to the harborers of the 9/11 attackers?
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From CNN
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Speaking to the people of Afghanistan during his speech at the U.N. this afternoon, President Bush lauded his administration for toppling the Taliban and erecting a free government in their place. He then proceeded to paper over the small inconvenient truth that the Taliban are resurgent in Afghanistan and operating with impunity.
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Truthdig Editor Robert Scheer puts the 9/11 conspiracy theories in perspective.
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By Robert Scheer — While Bush was distracted with Iraq, the patrons of terrorism were very much in business back where the 9/11 attack was hatched, turning Afghanistan into a narco-state that provides a lucrative source of cash for the “evildoers” Bush forgot about.
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Two thousand NATO and Afghan soldiers are involved in the largest military operation to occur in southern Afghanistan since NATO took over the area in early July. The explosion of violence in the area has taken the lives of over 200 Taliban fighters and of four Canadian soldiers. A UK reconnaissance plane also crashed, killing 14 people.
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Opium production in Afghanistan is at the highest level ever recorded and shows an increase of 50 percent from last year. The increase in opium cultivation is a result of the resurgence of Taliban rebels. The head of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, Antonio Maria Costa, said in a statement: ?The southern part of Afghanistan was displaying the ominous hallmarks of incipient collapse, with large-scale drug cultivation and trafficking, insurgency and terrorism, crime and corruption.?
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Mike Hoover / CBS via The New York Times
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In the wake of The New York Times Magazine’s cover story on the former Taliban official attending Yale, alumni are setting up protest websites designed to hurt fundraising efforts. Yale mostly won’t talk, but one university official responded by calling the critics “retarded.” (Hat tip: Huff Po)
Posted on Mar 14, 2006
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A New York Times reporter writes: “Four years after the Taliban were ousted from power by the American military, their presence is bigger and more menacing than ever, say police and government officials, village elders, farmers and aid workers across southern Afghanistan.”
Posted on Mar 3, 2006
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Ken Catalino
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By Robert Scheer — It’s the season’s big hit, a zany farce with pompous officials in the Bush administration and their hysterical courtiers in the mass media asserting positions that are patently absurd but hilarious to watch.
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Mike Hoover / CBS via The New York Times
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How did the Taliban’s chief spokesman abroad end up a student at Yale? The New York Times Magazine has the story.
Posted on Feb 27, 2006
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By Robert Scheer — With Al Qaeda and the Taliban on the rise in a country we supposedly “liberated,” Bush is cynically hoping Afghanistan will once again recede from the global stage into unseen anarchy.
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Suspected Taliban insurgents targeting educated community leaders | more
Posted on Jan 4, 2006
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