OMNI
AFGHANISTAN
(AND PAKISTAN) NEWSLETTER #23, August
22, 2017.
Compiled
by Dick Bennett for a Culture of Peace and Justice
(#8 April 15, 2011; #9 June 10, 2011;
#10 July 3, 2011; #11 July 13, 2011; #12
Sept. 5, 2011; #13 Oct. 2, 2011; #14 Oct. 15, 2011; #15 Feb. 14, 2012 ; #16
April 27, 2012; #17 May 3, 2012; #18 Oct. 20, 2012; #19 Jan. 14, 2013; #20
August 17, 2013; #21, Feb. 4, 2014; #22, Feb. 22, 2015)
Contribute
to OMNI: www.omnicenter.org/donate
Contents Afghanistan
and Pakistan Newsletter #23, August 22, 2017
President Trump’s New
Afghan Policy August 21, 2017
“Trump Affirms U.S.’ Role in Afghan Fight” August
22
“Trump Settles on Afghan Strategy Expected to Raise
Troop Levels” August 20
The Peace Movement Opposes
the War and Occupation: Remove US Troops
Beware
Another Surge
Danny Sjursen, “Tread Carefully”
Veterans for Peace
VFP Calls for No More War
The Nation editorial (2015): Remove the Troops from Endless War
WAR CONTINUES
Complications of the Occupation
and Civil War
(C-Span
8-21-17 offered a panel of specialists who presented highly complex pictures of
Afghan and Pakistani relations and their internal relations to ethnic and
terror groups. We’re skimming surfaces
here.)
Taliban in Afghanistan
The Guardian: “The War America Can’t
Win” (2017)
New
York Times: Insider Attacks Aid
Taliban: “Afghan Police Officer”
ISIS in Afghanistan
PBS Frontline
(2015): Rise of ISIS
ISIS vs. Taliban
C-SPAN 8-21-17 Islamist State in Koresan Province ISKP
US in Afghanistan
Gerald Sloan
(poem), After Dropping the Biggest Bomb in History
Thurston,
Hollywood Distorting Afghanistan
Bacevich,
Fiasco Within Fiasco
Gelvin, Trump
Follows Saudi Arabia
Film: “War
Machine” (2017), Black Comedy
Review of Anand Gopal’s book on the US, Taliban, and Afghans: “the War Through Afghan Eyes” (2015)
Bombing the Doctors Without Borders
Hospital in Kunduz 2015
Medecins Sans Frontierres MSF
Kathy Kelly, “Danger,” Huffington Post
Human Rights Watch, “War Crimes Probe”
Common Dreams v. Pentagon Report
Koehler, Huffington, US Savagery
UN Report on Civilian
Victims from US War
Opium: Taliban’s
Not So Secret Weapon
Koehler: The Savage, Trillion Dollar War Is NOT Over
Contents #22
FACTUAL INDICTMENT:
As of March 2016, there were approximately 28,600 DOD contractor
personnel in Afghanistan, compared to 8,730 U.S. troops,” They outnumber
troops 3 to 1. According to the DOD, roughly 10% are providing
security, and the majority are providing logistics and maintenance for U.S. and
Afghan troops. The data also reveals the high economic costs: According to
the report, from 2007 to 2015, the DOD spent roughly $220 billion for private
contracts in Iraq and Afghanistan.--------AlterNet, 8/19/16
The
U.S. military cannot account for $6.5 trillion given it by
taxpayers. Meanwhile $30 billion a year could end
starvation and hunger worldwide, and $11 billion a year could provide clean
drinking water to everyone who needs it. All the green energy
projects that could preserve life on earth would cost much less than the
unaccounted money of the Pentagon. The Pentagon recently gave a no-bid contract
for mercenaries and spies to fight ISIS in Syria. In
2001, the Pentagon could not account for $2.3 trillion. Our “heroes” are
bankrupting the U.S. ----CLG, 8/ 10/16
TRUMP’S
AFGHAN POLICY SPEECH AUGUST 21, 2017.
“Trump Affirms U.S.’ Role in Afghan
Fight.” NADG (August 22, 2017),
1A.
US will follow a “new strategy” away from a “time-based”
approach to one linked to “results” and “cooperation” from the Afghan
government and Pakistan. He offered no “blank-check,”
and “pointedly decline to say whether or when more troops might be sent,” but
with “few details” regarding “how that approach would differ substantively from
the U.S. has already tried unsuccessfully.”
(So the US Afghan war continues
business as usual, US endless war but not significantly increased in
Afghanistan. The waffling policy is
designed apparently to advance his campaign fundraising for the next
presidential election already under way; see “Trump ramping up for 2020 reelection” - POLITICO.
Read below
for further analysis. –Dick)
Trump Settles on Afghan Strategy Expected to Raise
Troop Levels By Michael
Gordon, et al. Aug. 20, 2017
This report published the day before
Trump’s speech on his policy August 21 contains the opinions of a wide range of
Trumpets. --Dick
OPPOSITION TO
US OCCUPATION OF AFGHANISTAN
BY Danny
Sjursen, TomDispatch.com, posted June 29, 2017. The author, a U.S. Army strategist who
served in Iraq and Afghanistan, formerly taught history at West Point
VETS
FOR PEACE: SAY NO TO WAR, LEAVE
AFGHANISTAN
Veterans For Peace: No More Troops in Afghanistan
The Trump Administration announced it has given Defense Secretary Jim Mattis the authority to determine troops levels in Afghanistan. It is widely believed that Mattis favors sending several thousand more U.S. troops to Afghanistan. Why? Perhaps to break the “stalemate” as described by the Commander of U.S. Forces in Afghanistan, Army General John Nicholson when describing the war to the Senate Armed Services Committee. In his June 13th testimony, Secretary Mattis told the same committee, “We are not winning in Afghanistan right now.”
Veterans For Peace calls for a different direction than more war. We call on Congress to stop funding war and demand a plan for a peaceful solution. We call on the President to immediately begin withdrawal of U.S. troops and take a new direction towards diplomacy and peace. And we call on the people of the U.S. to resist war and demand policies that foster peace and prosperity at home and in Afghanistan.
It should be clear after 16 years and the death of tens of thousands of people that no one is a winner in Afghanistan. There is no clear concept of what it means to win there. In fact, it is no longer clear why the U.S. continues to keep troops in Afghanistan and now is on the brink of increasing the number of men and women in harm's way. Read the Full Statement
STOP THIS “ENDLESS WAR”
The Nation (Nov. 9, 2015), Editorial p. 3. Excellent thumbnail case for removing our
troops from Afghanistan. (Digital
version available to subscribers Oct.
22). --Dick
WAR CONTINUES
TALIBAN in Afghanistan
The war America can't win: how
the Taliban took back Afghanistan
|
Aug 3,
2017 (1 day
ago)
|
|
||
|
||||
rom: Guardian
US briefing <info@mail.theguardian.com>
Date: Thu, Aug 3, 2017 at 8:47 AM
Subject: The war America can't win: how the Taliban took back Afghanistan
To: philcsc@gmail.com
Date: Thu, Aug 3, 2017 at 8:47 AM
Subject: The war America can't win: how the Taliban took back Afghanistan
To: philcsc@gmail.com
Afghan Police Officer Suspected of Helping Taliban Kill 10 Comrades
By TAIMOOR
SHAH and MUJIB MASHALJAN.
26, 2016
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan — Ten police officers
in the southern Afghan province of Oruzgan were poisoned
by a rogue colleague and shot in the head by Taliban fighters
the officer was working with, the second insider attack on the police in the
province in less than two weeks, officials said Tuesday.
The recent insider attacks
have added to the woes of an Afghan security force that suffered record casualties in the past year as the
Taliban mounted
strong offensives across the country, stretching the government’s fighters
thin. Officials say the situation in several districts of Oruzgan is fragile,
as it is in neighboring Helmand Province, with government operations unable to
break the Taliban momentum. MORE http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/27/world/asia/afghanistan-taliban-attack-police.html?_r=0
ISIS in Afghanistan
PBS Frontline, “ISIS in Afghanistan.” Nov. 17, 2015.
RISE OF
ISIS 2015
THE LATEST
In
a country that has experienced nearly endless conflict for more than 30
years, Afghan children have regularly been recruited to join armed groups on
both sides of the battle line.
It
appears ISIS-allied fighters are gaining a foothold in Afghanistan, but just
how similar are they to the group’s branches in Iraq and Syria?
As
ISIS expands its reach into Afghanistan, it is training children and
teenagers to become the next generation of jihadis.
The
emergence of ISIS in Afghanistan has introduced a new level of brutality to
the conflict, beyond what has been practiced by the Taliban.
This
November, explore an unsolved string of murders from the past, and the
dangerous new rise of ISIS in Afghanistan.
News of
Mullah Omar’s death comes at a time when the Taliban faces internal power
struggles and increased factionalism, even as it continues its brutal and
deadly fight against the Afghan government.
|
Complications of the
Civil War: ISIS vs. Taliban 2017
ISIS/TALIBAN, SUNNI/SUNNI?
“Afghan
Taliban, ISIS Clash; Dozens Killed.” NADG
(April 27, 2017).
I was
astonished by this headline and quickly assumed it was sectarian antagonism,
Sunni vs. Shi’a. I knew ISIS was Sunni,
but unsure about Taliban. Several sources on line weren’t helpful;
nobody seemed to want to be specific. But
eventually I found one source that stated firmly that Taliban (the extreme
fundamentalists of the Pashtun ethnic group of eastern Afghanistan and western
Pakistan) is Sunni. So we have two
powerful Sunni groups in Afghanistan warring with each other over whose
fundamentalist version will prevail?
The last sentence of this brief news report partly explains the
phenomenon: “The Islamic State affiliate
is largely composed of disgruntled former Taliban fighters.” --Dick
C-SPAN PANEL ON
MIDDLE EAST 8-21-17
One panelist labeled
the main IS power in Afghanistan as ISKP: Islamist State in Koresan Province, a
breadkaway group from the Taliban. ISKP
is small and is being hammered, but it has created much violence.
Neither of
these commentators suggested that the infighting weakened the Taliban or IS
insurgency against the US. But surely
the CIA is there working to see it happen.
--Dick
US NATION-WRECKING IN AFGHANISTAN
AFTER DROPPING THE BIGGEST
BOMB
IN HISTORY ON AFGANISTAN
By Gerald Sloan (2017)
The ant reconnoitering my
empty cup
is likely disappointed I
don't use sugar,
in compliance with Orwell's
eleven rules
for perfect tea, which is
very un-British,
not to mention un-American,
with our
tendency to sweeten
everything,
including killing. Thank god
the social
insects are
not susceptible to doublethink,
as we go about our
respective routines,
more or less adapted,
meaning insane.
By Robert W. Thurston, History
News Network, posted June 25
The
author is a professor emeritus of history at Miami University.
“A Small Fiasco Inside a Colossal Fiasco” (on the war in
Afghanistan)
By Andrew
J. Bacevich, Boston Globe, posted June 23
The
author is a professor emeritus of history and international relations at Boston
University.
By James
L. Gelvin, History News Network, posted June 25
The
author teaches modern Middle East history at UCLA.
If you like your comedy blacker
than black, you won't want to miss this "Dr. Strangelove"-style look
at the war in Afghanistan starring Brad Pitt.
Traverse City Film Festival 2017.
Anand Gopal
NO GOOD MEN AMONG THE LIVING:
America,
the Taliban, and the War through Afghan Eyes.
2015.
REVIEWS
Picador
·
National Book Awards Finalist
PULITZER PRIZE FINALIST
NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FINALIST
WINNER OF THE RIDENHOUR PRIZE
"Essential reading for anyone concerned about how America got Afghanistan so wrong. A devastating, well-honed prosecution detailing how our government bungled the initial salvo in the so-called war on terror, ignored attempts by top Taliban leaders to surrender, trusted the wrong people, and backed a feckless and corrupt Afghan regime . . . It is ultimately the most compelling account I've read of how Afghans themselves see the war." --The New York Times Book Review
In a breathtaking chronicle, acclaimed journalist Anand Gopal traces the lives of three Afghans caught in America's war on terror. He follows a Taliban commander, who rises from scrawny teenager to leading insurgent; a U.S.-backed warlord, who uses the American military to gain wealth and power; and a village housewife trapped between the two sides, who discovers the devastating cost of neutrality. Through their dramatic stories, No Good Men Among the Living stunningly lays bare the workings of America's longest war and the truth behind its prolonged agony.
NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FINALIST
WINNER OF THE RIDENHOUR PRIZE
"Essential reading for anyone concerned about how America got Afghanistan so wrong. A devastating, well-honed prosecution detailing how our government bungled the initial salvo in the so-called war on terror, ignored attempts by top Taliban leaders to surrender, trusted the wrong people, and backed a feckless and corrupt Afghan regime . . . It is ultimately the most compelling account I've read of how Afghans themselves see the war." --The New York Times Book Review
In a breathtaking chronicle, acclaimed journalist Anand Gopal traces the lives of three Afghans caught in America's war on terror. He follows a Taliban commander, who rises from scrawny teenager to leading insurgent; a U.S.-backed warlord, who uses the American military to gain wealth and power; and a village housewife trapped between the two sides, who discovers the devastating cost of neutrality. Through their dramatic stories, No Good Men Among the Living stunningly lays bare the workings of America's longest war and the truth behind its prolonged agony.
April 5, 2015
Tomgram: Anand Gopal, How to Create an Afghan Blackwater
Tomgram: Anand Gopal, How to Create an Afghan Blackwater
The
other day, as I was reading through the New York Times, I came
upon this headline: “Powerful
Afghan Police Chief Killed in Kabul.” His name was Matiullah Khan. He had once
been “an illiterate highway patrol commander” in an obscure southern province
of Afghanistan and was taken out in a “targeted suicide bombing” on the streets
of the capital -- and I realized that I knew him! Since I’ve never been within
a few thousand miles of Kabul, I certainly didn’t know him in the normal sense.
I had, you might say, edited Matiullah Khan. He was one of a crop of new
warlords who rose to wealth and power by hitching their ambitions to the
American war and the U.S. military personnel sent to their country to fight it.
Khan, in particular, made staggering sums by essentially setting up an “Afghan
Blackwater,” a hire-a-gun -- in fact, so many guns -- protection agency for
American convoys delivering supplies to far-flung U.S. bases and outposts in
southern Afghanistan.
He became the protector and benefactor of a remarkable Afghan woman who is a key character in Anand Gopal’s No Good Men Among the Living: America, the Taliban, and the War Through Afghan Eyes, which I edited and published in the American Empire Project series I co-run for Metropolitan Books. I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to say that Gopal covered the Afghan War for years in a way no other Western journalist did. He spent time with crucial allies of Afghan President Hamid Karzai and with a Taliban commander, with warlords and American Special Ops guys, politicians and housewives. He traveled rural Afghanistan as few American reporters were capable of doing. In the process, he made a discovery that was startling indeed and has yet to really sink in here.
In a nutshell, in 2001, the invading Americans put al-Qaeda to flight and crushed the Taliban. From most of its top leadership to its foot soldiers, the Talibs were almost uniformly prepared, even eager, to put down their weapons, go back to their villages, and be left in peace. In other words, it was all over. There was just one problem. The Americans, on Washington’s mission to win the Global War on Terror, just couldn’t stop fighting. In their inability to grasp the situation, they essentially forced the Taliban back onto the battlefield and so created an insurgency and a war that they couldn’t win.
Reaction to Gopal’s book, published last April, was at first muted. That’s not so surprising, given that the news it brought to the table wasn’t exactly going to be a popular message here. In recent months, however, it’s gained real traction: the positive reviews began coming in; Rory Stewart made it his book of the year pick at the New Statesman (“Anand Gopal has produced the best piece of investigative journalism to come out of Afghanistan in the past 12 years”); it was a National Book Award finalist and is a finalist for the New York Public Library’s Helen Bernstein Book Award For Excellence in Journalism.
He became the protector and benefactor of a remarkable Afghan woman who is a key character in Anand Gopal’s No Good Men Among the Living: America, the Taliban, and the War Through Afghan Eyes, which I edited and published in the American Empire Project series I co-run for Metropolitan Books. I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to say that Gopal covered the Afghan War for years in a way no other Western journalist did. He spent time with crucial allies of Afghan President Hamid Karzai and with a Taliban commander, with warlords and American Special Ops guys, politicians and housewives. He traveled rural Afghanistan as few American reporters were capable of doing. In the process, he made a discovery that was startling indeed and has yet to really sink in here.
In a nutshell, in 2001, the invading Americans put al-Qaeda to flight and crushed the Taliban. From most of its top leadership to its foot soldiers, the Talibs were almost uniformly prepared, even eager, to put down their weapons, go back to their villages, and be left in peace. In other words, it was all over. There was just one problem. The Americans, on Washington’s mission to win the Global War on Terror, just couldn’t stop fighting. In their inability to grasp the situation, they essentially forced the Taliban back onto the battlefield and so created an insurgency and a war that they couldn’t win.
Reaction to Gopal’s book, published last April, was at first muted. That’s not so surprising, given that the news it brought to the table wasn’t exactly going to be a popular message here. In recent months, however, it’s gained real traction: the positive reviews began coming in; Rory Stewart made it his book of the year pick at the New Statesman (“Anand Gopal has produced the best piece of investigative journalism to come out of Afghanistan in the past 12 years”); it was a National Book Award finalist and is a finalist for the New York Public Library’s Helen Bernstein Book Award For Excellence in Journalism.
See also Review by Ted Nee Walker, “The Strength of Mercy & Love,” The
Catholic Worker (June-July, 2015).
--Dick
·
Donate
Kunduz
Hospital Airstrike
Fires burn
in the MSF emergency trauma hospital in Kunduz, Afghanistan, after it was hit
and partially destroyed by missiles 03 October 2015.
On Saturday 3 October 2015
the MSF Trauma centre in Kunduz was hit several times during
sustained bombing by coalition forces, and was very badly damaged.
Twelve staff members and
at least 10 patients, including three children, were killed; 37 people were
injured including 19 staff members.
The Danger of Care
12/08/2015 09:04 pm
ET | Updated Dec 08, 2015
·
ASSOCIATED PRESS
"Why did they attack us? We were trying to serve
people." --Khalid Ahmad, age 20, a survivor of the U.S. Attack on Médecins
Sans Frontières (MSF) Kunduz Hospital.
Here in Kabul, I've been with fellow activists to see Khalid Ahmad, aged 20, who survived the U.S.'s October 3 attack on the Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) hospital in Kunduz, Afghanistan. The attack killed 31 people and the U.S. is refusing to allow an independent investigation. Kunduz is about 210 miles from here. Two hospitals close to Kunduz couldn't handle Khalid's injuries, and so the relatives rushed him to the EMERGENCY hospital in Kabul where he is now recovering from a severe shrapnel injury to his spine. . . .
Here in Kabul, I've been with fellow activists to see Khalid Ahmad, aged 20, who survived the U.S.'s October 3 attack on the Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) hospital in Kunduz, Afghanistan. The attack killed 31 people and the U.S. is refusing to allow an independent investigation. Kunduz is about 210 miles from here. Two hospitals close to Kunduz couldn't handle Khalid's injuries, and so the relatives rushed him to the EMERGENCY hospital in Kabul where he is now recovering from a severe shrapnel injury to his spine. . . .
The
U.S. military played no role whatsoever, during or afterwards, in attempting to
rescue, evacuate or transport victims of the attack.
Here
in the Kabul hospital, Luca Radaelli, who coordinates medical treatment for all
of the EMERGENCY NGO's Afghan facilities, told us that their Kabul hospital was
already full when news came through of the attack. They had quickly opened new
wards to begin receiving 91 traumatized survivors from Kunduz.
Luca
has worked in Afghanistan for close to seven years. Each year, he and his
colleagues have said that the situation is worse than ever before. "And
now I'm telling you," Luca said, "never have we seen so much
suffering. Health care systems in the provinces are collapsing. We expend a lot
of energy, but it seems more and more like a drop in the ocean."
His
colleague, Michaela, medical coordinator for the Kabul hospital, told us how
difficult it has been, emotionally, for all of the staff to know, amid the
stress of working in a war zone, that the U.S. military might at any time
destroy their facilities, kill and wound their colleagues, and incinerate their
patients. Like the MSF hospitals, this hospital is a politics-free zone as
well: they allow no weapons in their facility, accept all who arrive with
severe injuries, and don't raise questions or suspicions.
It's
crucial for U.S. people to acknowledge, in this context, that killing suspects,
anywhere, at whatever distance from any battlefield, and surrounded by however
many innocent civilians, is a hallmark of the United States' drone
assassination campaign.
MSF
staff continue to demand an independent investigation of the attack on the
Kunduz hospital, but the U.S. military insists that its internal investigation
will be sufficient. Its policy on incurring collateral damage, despite
universally recognized prohibitions against killing civilians and targeting
hospitals, remains unchanged. Until U.S. citizens decide to care in greater
numbers, it is unclear how anything here can change.
After
events like the Kunduz attack, the U.S. military generally asserts that
protection of civilians is impossible in wartime. This argument becomes the
excuse for so seldom even making an attempt to protect civilians. When the U.S.
government chooses to wage war, high principles are cited, vaunting the U.S.
responsibility to protect U.S. people from harm. But the U.S. doesn't
acknowledge that innocent men, women and children will be killed, maimed,
traumatized and displaced. The U.S. government refuses to undertake even a tiny
fraction of the ongoing risk that the brave carers, the humanitarian relief
workers in Kabul and Kunduz, have taken to protect the safety of people
actually in need.
The
choice to be perfectly safe or to be fully human now faces every person in the
United States and in any country governed by countries waging wars on behalf of
their supposed security. "If we care about people," concludes Luca,
"we cannot choose war."
Kathy Kelly (Kathy@vcnv.org) co-coordinates Voices for Creative
Nonviolence (www.vcnv.org) While in Kabul, she is a guest of the Afghan Peace
Volunteers (ourjourneytosmile.com)
Taimoor Shah reported from Kandahar, and Mujib Mashal from
Kabul, Afghanistan.
Backing MSF, Human Rights Watch Says US
Must Consent to War Crimes Probe
http://www.commondreams.org/news/2015/12/21/backing-msf-human-rights-watch-says-us-must-consent-war-crimes-probe
'We believe that there is a strong basis for determining that
criminal liability exists,' group states in new letter to Gen. Carter
The bombing in
October killed at least 42 patients and staff. (Photo: MSF)
There is
"strong" evidence that the U.S. military attack on a Doctors Without
Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) hospital in Kunduz, Afghanistan two
months ago constituted a criminal act, and should be investigated as such,
Human Rights Watch said Monday in a letter to Defense
Secretary Ashton Carter (pdf).
"The
attack on the MSF hospital in Kunduz involved possible war crimes," said
the advocacy group's Washington director Sarah Margon. "The ongoing U.S.
inquiry will not be credible unless it considers criminal liability and is
protected from improper command influence."
The 30-minute
airstrike on October 3 killed at least 42 patients and staff
and wounded several others. In November, the Pentagon released the summary of
its internal inquiry into the bombing, which blamed the attack on "human
error"—a conclusion that human rights groups rejected and
which MSF said provided "more questions than answers."
The
Pentagon's report, as well as the military's "poor record prosecuting
alleged war crimes in Afghanistan and Iraq," demonstrates the urgent need
for an investigation conducted by an independent source, rather than the
government or the army, HRW said.
"It
is essential that you publicly and explicitly clarify that ongoing
investigations into the Kunduz attack include a thorough inquiry that considers
the possible criminal liability of U.S. personnel, including at the command
level," the letter to Carter states. "We believe that there is a
strong basis for determining that criminal liability exists.... We also call on
you to take all necessary steps to ensure that the investigation is independent
and not subject to undue command influence."
Carter
said the Pentagon's inquiry was "thorough and unbiased," but numerous
critics questioned the legitimacy of the government investigating itself for
possible war crimes.
"U.S.
military commanders who oversaw the Kunduz military operation shouldn't be
deciding who gets prosecuted for the MSF hospital attack,"Margon
said Monday. "The U.S. government should recognize that
its resolution of this horrific incident will have repercussions for U.S.
military operations far beyond Afghanistan."
MSF has
also repeatedly called for the U.S. government to submit to an inquiry
conducted by the International Humanitarian Fact-Finding Commission, which was
created under the Geneva Conventions in 1991. The commission has said it
was ready to carry out an investigation, but could only do so with the U.S.
government's consent.
'More Questions Than Answers': MSF Not
Buying Pentagon Probe into Hospital Attack
"The frightening catalogue of errors
outlined today illustrates gross negligence on the part of U.S. forces and
violations of the rules of war," said MSF director general Christopher
Stokes. (Photo: Andrew Quilty/Foreign Policy)
Doctors Without Borders is challenging the
Pentagon over the findings of internal probes into the bombing of a hospital in
the Afghan city of Kunduz on October 3, saying the military's conclusions offer
"more questions than answers" and that claims of "human error"
simply don't correspond to the available facts.
The pair of investigations, which trickled out
by way of the mainstream media,
reduced the attack on
the Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) hospital to series
of human errors and technical glitches. The findings claim to show that
despite the medical charity's documented efforts to alert commanders to the
onslaught, those signals did not reportedly reach the trigger team until it was
"too late," resulting in the deaths of at least 31 civilians and
injuring 28 more.
Among observers—including the head of MSF—the
findings have raised some eyebrows as well as questions such as: What
about the hour-long attempts to stop the bombing? How does this compare to
MSF's own
investigation? Why are these damning reports being released the day
before Thanksgiving? And what does this say about the competency of the U.S.
military?
"The U.S. version of events presented
today leaves MSF with more questions than answers," saidChristopher
Stokes, MSF general director.
Responding to the news that gunmen
erroneously relied on a physical description of the compound to carry out the
attack and had intended to strike a building 450 yards away, Stokes continued:
"It appears that 30 people were killed and hundreds of thousands of people
are denied life-saving care in Kunduz simply because the MSF hospital was the
closest large building to an open field and 'roughly matched' a description of
an intended target."
"The frightening catalogue of errors
outlined today illustrates gross negligence on the part of U.S. forces and
violations of the rules of war," he added, reiterating the organization's
call for independent and impartial investigation into the attack.
A series of tweets from journalists who
covered the ongoing story of the attack further captured the cynicism
surrounding the release:
We, the Pentagon Jury, find
ourselves . . . (breath held in suspense) . . . NOT GUILTY of deliberately
targeting MSF hospital (exhale gasp). MORE see the link above.
05/05/2016 04:51 pm ET | Updated May
06, 2016
writer
ASSOCIATED
PRESS
“The
people are being reduced to blood and dust. They are in pieces.”
The
doctor who uttered these words still thought the hospital itself was a safe
zone. He was with Doctors Without Borders, working in Kunduz, Afghanistan,
where the Taliban and government forces were engaged in hellish fighting and
civilians, as always, were caught in the middle. The wounded, including
children, had been flowing in all week, and the staff were unrelieved in their
duties, working an unending shift.
Their
week ended at 2 a.m. last Oct. 3 when - as the world knows - a U.S. AC-130
gunship began strafing the hospital, the crew apparently acting on the mistaken
belief that this was a Taliban compound. The strike lasted for an hour,
continuing even though the humanitarian organization contacted the Pentagon and
pleaded that it stop.
A total
of 211 shells hit the hospital. The Intensive Care Unit was wiped out. Every
patient in the unit except for a 3-year-old girl was killed, some burning to
death in their beds. A total of 42 people - patients, staff and doctors - died
because of this lethal mistake. MORE see
link above
Robert
Koehler is an award-winning, Chicago-based journalist and nationally syndicated
writer. Contact him at koehlercw@gmail.com or visit his website at commonwonders.com.
Civilian casualties are rising in Afghanistan, says
UN. Reuters (10/19) .
From UN News Wire, UN Foundation.
UN:
Civilian Casualties in Afghanistan, Google Search, August 22, 2017
https://www.theguardian.com
› World › Afghanistan
Jul 17, 2017 - The number of civilian deaths in the Afghan war has reached a
record high, continuing an almost unbroken trend of nearly a decade of
rising casualties. The number of deaths of women and
children grew especially fast, primarily due to the Taliban’s use of homemade
bombs, which ...
www.aljazeera.com/.../condemns-jump-afghan-civilian-deaths-170717085257088.ht...
Jul 17, 2017 - The UN has condemned an
increase in civilian deaths in Afghanistan in the first half of 2017, with 1,662
killed and more than 3,500 injured.
https://unama.unmissions.org/unama-first-quarter-2017-civilian-casualty-data
Apr 27, 2017 - KABUL - The UN Assistance Mission
in Afghanistan (UNAMA) urges all
... The decrease incivilian casualties recorded by UNAMA is chiefly ...
https://www.nytimes.com/.../afghanistan-civilian-deaths-united-nations-report.html?...3
Jul 17, 2017 - Civilian deaths are mounting,
a U.N. report finds, with
1662 killed in the first ... KABUL,Afghanistan — Afghanistan has grown more deadly this ...
OPIUM WAR
“How a
Pink Flower Defeated the World’s Sole Superpower: America’s Opium War in Afghanistan”
By Alfred W. McCoy. www.commondreams.org/views/2016/02/22/how-pink-flower-defeated-worlds-sole-superpower-americas-opium-war-afghanistan
In the almost 15 years of continuous combat
since the U.S. invasion of 2001, pacification efforts have failed to curtail
the Taliban insurgency largely because the U.S. could not control the swelling
surplus from the county’s heroin trade. (Photo: Reuters)
After fighting the longest war in its history, the United States
stands at the brink of defeat in Afghanistan. How can this be possible? How
could the world’s sole superpower have battled continuously for 15 years,
deploying 100,000 of its finest troops, sacrificing the lives of 2,200 of those
soldiers, spending more
than a trillion dollars on its military operations, lavishing a
record hundred billion more on “nation-building” and “reconstruction,” helping
raise, fund, equip, and train an army of 350,000 Afghan allies, and still not
be able to pacify one of the world’s most impoverished nations? So dismal is
the prospect for stability in Afghanistan in 2016 that the Obama White House
has recently cancelled a
planned further withdrawal of its forces and will leave an estimated 10,000
troops in the country indefinitely.
Were you to cut through the Gordian knot of
complexity that is the Afghan War, you would find that in the American failure
there lies the greatest policy paradox of the century: Washington’s massive
military juggernaut has been stopped dead in its steel tracks by a pink flower,
the opium poppy.
For more than three decades in Afghanistan,
Washington’s military operations have succeeded only when they fit reasonably
comfortably into Central Asia’s illicit traffic in opium, and suffered when
they failed to complement it. The first U.S. intervention there began in 1979.
It succeeded in part because the surrogate war the CIA launched to expel the
Soviets from that country coincided with the way its Afghan allies used the
country’s swelling drug traffic to sustain their decade-long struggle. (continued at link above)
BUSH/OBAMA’S WAR “OFFICIALLY”
ENDED IN 2014 BUT CONTINUED Right On
Robert C. Koehler. Skulking Away from a Failed [dehumanizing] War. http://commonwonders.com/world/skulking-away-from-a-failed-war/
Wednesday, December 31st, 2014,
“The only good Talib is a
dead Talib.”
These words,
uttered half a decade ago by the head of intelligence for the NATO coalition
force in Afghanistan, summon a far earlier American savagery. As the American
empire affects to close the door on its war with Afghanistan, the words also
serve as a sort of doorstop propping open our further intervention in this
broken country.
The war isn’t
really ending. Some 18,000 foreign
troops will stay in Afghanistan, almost 11,000 of them American, under a new mission called “Resolute Support.” U.S. forces will
also have “a limited combat role as part
of a separate counterterrorism mission,” according to the Wall Street
Journal. Incredibly, we’re not letting go. We’re just disappearing the combat
mission into global background noise.
We’re continuing to dehumanize part of
humanity on the pretext of saving it. The updated version of “the only good
Indian is a dead Indian,” redirected to the Taliban, was quoted a few days ago
in a Der Spiegel article called “Obama’s Lists: A Dubious History of
Targeted Killings in Afghanistan.” The article goes into detail about the
administration’s infamous “kill lists” and the hunting of upper- and mid-level
Taliban leaders via helicopter and drone — assassination by Hellfire missile —
which is an extermination methodology guaranteed to kill lots of innocent civilians
along with (or instead of) the targeted Taliban operative. But, you know,
that’s war.
The official
“end” to the Afghan war, while it doesn’t mean the end of combat operations,
does offer us a moment of disturbing reflection on what has been accomplished
these last 13 years, during the first of our wars allegedly to eradicate, but
in fact to promote, terror. We poured at
least a trillion dollars into the war, which claimed some 30,000 lives,
over two-thirds of them civilians. The first thing that occurs to me is that,
officially, these statistics mean nothing.
U.S. Army
General John Campbell, commander of the International Security Assistance
Force, exemplified this by smothering the human toll of the war in
simple-minded verbiage during a secret ceremony held last weekend in a
gymnasium at ISAF headquarters in Kabul: “Our new resolute mission means we
will continue to invest in Afghanistan’s future,” he said. “Our commitment to
Afghanistan endures.”
By the way, the
ceremony, commemorating the war’s shutdown, was secret because authorities
feared the possibility of a Taliban attack. The United States and NATO, as
everyone knows, are the losers, despite the bloated enormity of their military
superiority. The Afghanistan war, like the Iraq war, was an utter failure even
in terms of U.S. interests and geopolitical objectives.
But any honest
reflection requires a far more serious, all-encompassing look at the war’s
results.
War is torture
on a national scale. The nation of Afghanistan and its people are, of course,
the primary losers in our “investment” in their future — our investment in nation-wrecking.
For instance:
“What has happened in Afghanistan over the last 13 years has been the
flourishing of a narco-state that is
really without any parallel in history,” Matthieu Aikins said during a recent
interview on Democracy Now.
Aikens’ article, “Afghanistan: The Making of a Narco
State,” which ran recently in Rolling
Stone, points out that, since the U.S. invasion, opium production in
Afghanistan has doubled and the country now accounts for about 90 percent of
the world’s heroin traffic. Opium is about 15 percent of the country’s gross
domestic product, Aikens said — even though Afghanistan is at the bottom of the
drug trade economically. “Afghan farmers only touch 1 percent of the value of
the global opium trade,” he said.
Before 2001,
opium production had been declining in Afghanistan, but, Aikens told Democracy
Now, “the U.S., in its quest for vengeance against the Taliban and al-Qaeda,
partnered with the very warlords whose criminality and human rights abuses had
created the conditions that led to the rise of the Taliban in the first place.
And in many cases, these are the same individuals who were responsible for
bringing large-scale opium cultivation to Afghanistan during the war against
the Soviets.”
War is also
humanity’s spiritual cancer.
Up and down the
ranks, dehumanization of the enemy
rules. “The only good Talib is a dead Talib.” This is the thinking that
justifies mass bombing raids and kill lists. It also infects the souls of
rank-and-file soldiers, such as the “Kill Team” described by Mark Boal in
another extraordinary Rolling Stone story, this one published in March 2011.
“Among the men
of Bravo Company,” Boal writes, “the notion of killing an Afghan civilian had
been the subject of countless conversations, during lunchtime chats and
late-night bull sessions. For weeks, they had weighed the ethics of bagging
‘savages’ and debated the probability of getting caught. Some of them agonized
over the idea; others were gung-ho from the start. But not long after the New
Year, as winter descended on the arid plains of Kandahar Province, they agreed
to stop talking and actually pull the trigger.”
Boal’s article
details the killing — and dismemberment — of Afghan civilians purely for sport
and revenge. The details are gruesome: “Then, using a pair of razor-sharp
medic’s shears, he reportedly sliced off the dead boy’s pinky finger and gave
it to Holmes, as a trophy for killing his first Afghan.”
What a mockery
the reality of war makes of the rhetoric that blesses it. The American empire
holds a secret ceremony to skulk away from a failed mission. But this war isn’t
over. It won’t be over until we vow, as a nation, not to start the next one.
Robert
Koehler is an award-winning, Chicago-based journalist and nationally syndicated
writer. His book, Courage Grows Strong at the Wound (Xenos Press), is still
available. Contact him at koehlercw@gmail.com or
visit his website at commonwonders.com.
© 2015
TRIBUNE CONTENT AGENCY, INC.
Dick’s recasting of Koehler’s opening.
The Deceit:
U.S. Army General John Campbell, commander of the International
Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan in 2014, said at ISAF headquarters in
Kabul: “Our new resolute mission means
we will continue to invest in Afghanistan’s future.” The new mssion was called “Resolute Support.”
The Realilty in 2014: what our trillion dollars investment purchased:
His statement smothered the human
toll of the war in simple-minded, self-servicing verbiage.
Afghanistan during the last 13 years has become a flourishing a narco-state that is without any
parallel in history. Since the U.S.
invasion, opium production in Afghanistan has doubled and the country now
accounts for about 90 percent of the world’s heroin traffic
Thus it dehumanized Afghans
on the pretext of saving it.
And deluded the US public
into thinking the trillion dollars
actually helped Afghanistan.
It covered up from the
public the US savagery in the war and the long history of US wars without
mercy. The intelligence head for the NATO
coaliltion said: “The only good Talib is a dead Talib.” Remember “the only good Indian is a dead
Indian,” which we enacted before the world by almost completely eradicating the
Native Americans, reduced from more than 12 million to fewer than a million at
one point.
It suppressed Obama’s “targeted” Killings in
Afghanistan with its infamous “kill lists” and the hunting of upper- and
mid-level Taliban leaders via helicopter and drone — assassination by Hellfire
missile — which also kills innocent civilians.
It falsely suggested
the war’s purpose was to to eradicate terror, but in fact it promoted
terror. Torture flourished in Iraq.
And war is torture on a national scale. The frequent bombings terrorized the nation.
The nation of Afghanistan and its people are, of course, the
primary losers in our “investment” in their future — our investment in nation-wrecking.
BOOKS AND FILMS REVIEWED OR CITED IN PREVIOUS
NEWSLETTERS
Contents of #18, Oct. 20, 2012
Films, Help Local Afghan Initiatives
Film, Rethink Afghanistan
From Hell and
Back Again New Documentary
Little America
Contents of
#19 Jan. 14, 2013
2 Books on the Taliban by Antonio Giustozzi
Neo-Taliban Insurgency
2003-2007 (2007)
Decoding the Neo-Taliban
(2009)
2 Books by Linschoten and Kuehn
Myth of Taliban/Al-Qaeda
Poetry of the Taliban
New Children’s Book:
The Sky of Afghanistan
Contents of
#20 August 17, 2013 What Is the
“Taliban”?
Rashid, Pakistan on the Brink (of chaos)
Contents
#21
Graeme Smith, The Dogs Are Eating Them Now, Memoir,
#22, Feb. 14, 2014
Contents
Afghanistan-Pakistan Newsletter #22, 2015
Occupation of Afghanistan
Anand Gopal, America, the Taliban, and the War through
Afghan Eyes
Graeme Smith, The Dogs Are Eating Them Now, Memoir,
Post-
Mortem of How the War and Occupation Unravelled
Mortem of How the War and Occupation Unravelled
Post-Invasion/Occupation/Withdrawal/Continuation
Chaos and Suffering
Kathy Kelly, US
Extends War in Afghanstan
US/NATO End
Official Occupation
Raghavan, Armed
Forces Remaining in Afghanistan
Pentagon
Secretary Nominee Open to More Troops Feb. 2015
US War in
Afghanistan Waged by Contractors Feb. 2015
Matthieu
Aikins, Afghanistan Again a Major Opium Producer
Answer
Coalition Report
Sign Ho’s Petition
Chris Hedges,
The Children
Nahigyan, Cost
of the War$$
Dick, Resurgent Taliban an Old History
Ann Wright,
Petition to Fox News to Stop Attacking Sgt.
Bergdahl
Bergdahl
Drake, Sgt.
Short PTSD?
Pakistan
Two New Books
Rev. by Ahmad in The Nation (Dec. 29,
2014)
Fair, Fighting
to the End
Shah,
The Army and Democracy
For research
purposes, specific subjects can be located in the following alphabetized index,
and searched on the blog using the search box. The search box is located
in the upper left corner of the webpage.
Newsletter Index: http://omnicenter.org/dick-bennetts-peace-justice-and-ecology-newsletters/dicks-newsletter-index/
Newsletter Index: http://omnicenter.org/dick-bennetts-peace-justice-and-ecology-newsletters/dicks-newsletter-index/
(479)
442-4600
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END AFGHANISTAN-PAKISTAN NEWSLETTER #23
