After nearly two decades of war and occupation, United States and NATO forces have withdrawn from Afghanistan, leaving Afghans to pick up the pieces, reports Pip Hinman.
Afghanistan
Malalai Joya speaks to Green Left about the United States' recent announcement that it will withdraw its troops and the West’s support for the Taliban.
Solidarity Party of Afghanistan member Shayaan discusses the nearly two-decade-long war in Afghanistan.
Afghan pro-democracy activist and former parliamentarian Malalai Joya spoke to Green Left about the US “peace deal” with the Taliban and how it amounts to a continuation of the 19-year war.
Afghanistan has been turned in to a battle ground of the big powers, and our poor people are the first and easy victims, writes Malalai Joya.
Disaster Capitalism
Written by Antony Loewenstein
Directed by Thor Neureiter
www.disastercapitalismfilm.com
Disaster Capitalism is a groundbreaking documentary film about Bougainville, Haiti and Afghanistan, revealing the dark underbelly of the global aid and investment industry. The film offers important insights into a secret multi-billion dollar world by investigating how aid money is actually spent — or misspent.
United States President Donald Trump announced that the US would continue the ongoing war in Afghanistan, which is already the longest war in US history, Democracy Now! reported on August 22.
The Pentagon is likely to deploy about 4000 more US troops to Afghanistan in the coming months. In recent months, the US has intensified its air war in Afghanistan. During June, the US carried out 389 airstrikes in Afghanistan — the highest monthly total in five years.
Hit and Run: The New Zealand SAS in Afghanistan & the Meaning of Honour
By Nicky Hager & Jon Stephenson
Potton & Burton, 2017
159 pages
In this well-written and powerful book, Nicky Hager and Jon Stephenson present a barrage of evidence that “New Zealanders and their United States allies were involved in war crimes” in Afghanistan in 2010.
Afghan anti-war activist and feminist Malalai Joya sent the solidarity message below to a protest organised by Sydney Stop the War Coalition against the visit of US Vice President Mike Pence to Australia on April 29.
Joya was elected to Afghanistan’s National Assembly of Afghanistan from 2005 until early 2007. She was dismissed from her seat for denouncing the presence of warlords and war criminals in the Afghan Parliament.
Although it was not deemed worthy of front page coverage in much of the Western media, the horrific attack against a demonstration in Kabul on July 23 should be known about and condemned by the whole world.
More than 80 people from the Hazara minority were slaughtered in the terrorist attack. Their only crime was to assemble in a crowd to peacefully protest against discrimination and demand justice from the corrupt and puppet government of Ashraf Ghani and Abdullah Abdullah.
President Barack Obama, calling Afghanistan's security situation precarious, said on July 6 he would keep US soldier levels in the country at 8400 through the end of his administration. He had pledged to cut soldier numbers to 5500 by the year's end.
Obama's plan still calls for a cut in US soldier levels from the current roughly 9800.
He fell in Afghanistan
Sometime the day before
The Major from the New Mexico National Guard
couldn't find my house
and it was a stormy night in Albuquerque
So we talked by cell phone instead--
No dress uniforms at my door--
It was a clean three shots
Straight through the heart
He was dead before he hit the ground
The Major was a father himself he said
I could hear his kid behind the phone
I could see my own son reaching up to his dad
The Major called back later
The government could fly me
the Major said
to the Dignified Transfer at Dover base
I asked where that was
Reversing earlier promises to end US military involvement in Afghanistan, President Barack Obama has announced that US troops will remain indefinitely. He said they will not be ground combat forces, but trainers and advisers to the forces of the US-imposed warlord-dominated regime.
US air strikes in support of the regime, by both piloted aircraft and drones, will continue. One such strike was the deliberate bombing of the Doctors Without Borders (MSF) hospital in Kunduz.
Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott announced on September 9 a novel approach to stemming the flow of refugees from Syria: bombing the country.
He also announced plans to accept a further 12,000 Syrian refugees on top of his government's miserly quota, but was quick to dispel any hopes that Australia might be abandoning its status as the Western world's leading abuser of refugees. Abbott told ABC Radio National on September 10 that Syrian refugees being held in the Australian-run concentration camps in Nauru and Manus Island would not be released.
30,000 people marched in Vienna on August 31 to demonstrate against inhumane treatment of refugees.
In less than a fortnight a series of tragedies took place on the borders of Europe, spurring a continent-wide debate over refugee policy.
On August 26, about 200 refugees perished at sea as their ship capsized off the coast of Libya on its way to Italy.
Independent journalist and author Antony Loewenstein has made a name for himself writing about war crimes, human rights abuses and corporate profiteering.
For the first time, he is seeking to speak truth to power through the medium of film — with his first documentary Disaster Capitalism now in production. You can see a teaser at Loewenstein's website. You can visit http://antonyloewenstein.com for more details on his articles and books.
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