A couple days ago, my US State Department daily feeder cooked me up this press conference by US Afghan/Pakistan Envoy Richard Holbrooke. The Q & A, though centered on Holbrooke’s most recent trip to Pakistan and the Gulf States, held several interesting items regarding Afghanistan and the nascent Obama administration strategy for the region. Right […]
Reports are slipping out from the US military’s official investigation into the accidental bombing of civilians in Afghanistan’s Farah Province last month and it looks like the US is admitting some mistakes. The investigation, according to the LA and NY Times, acknowledges that all rules of engagement were not followed during the incident, including reports […]
I apologize for my absence as we have been having good ol’fashioned technical difficulties. There are many Afghan-related in the past week and I hope to catch up and comment on at least a few of them (McChrystal’s testimony, airstrikes and civilian casualties, poppies, etc.), but for now let’s discuss what President Obama said in […]
Rashid, a highly touted Pakistani journalist, begins the final chapter of his 2000 ‘Taliban’ by calling the country one of world’s ‘orphaned conflict’s’. The country would quickly change from being orphaned to a month after 9/11 being the center of global politics, as the United States uprooted the Taliban government and sent them packing, unfortunately […]
US Defense (or is it War) Secretary Robert Gates spoke candidly about the war in Afghanistan to group of reporters yesterday aboard an Air Force plane. Gates, who has gone from a seemingly short, holdover type term to one filled with significance, warned that unless “a perceptible shift in momentum” occurs with the Obama administration’s […]
Afghan school girls have been targets of the Taliban ever since the group starting gaining power in the country in 1994 and the group remains vigilant in stopping women from gaining access to such basic rights, especially an education. The Taliban have burned down hundreds of girl schools in the past few years and has […]
The Los Angeles Times has reported a significant change in US-Pakistani usage of drone attacks inside Pakistan territory, and that is that both sides have agreed on a framework to work together. US and Pakistani military officials both anonymously acknowledged that they had joined forces in using US Predator drones to attack Al Qaeda and […]
The crisis in western Pakistan has heavily dominated the news in the past week, and rightly so. But there’s a huge hole in the story–the media is not allowed to go to the wild Swat Valley region where much of this story is happening. So, the media and people paying attention to this important story […]
I don’t normally use this blog to discuss specific violent attacks in Afghanistan, but these incidents are becoming appalling to read about, I can’t imagine living them. In a series of attacks yesterday, over 25 Afghan civilians, security officials, and government figures were killed. The provincial mayor of the eastern province of Laghman was killed […]
Dexter Filkins reports in the New York Times that part of Obama’s new Afghanistan policy is an emphasis on curtailing Taliban profits from the opium trade. To do this, US commanders have authorization to attempt to take control of the opium-heavy growing regions of Helmand, Kandahar and Zabul Provinces. I could not discern whether a […]
It is being reported that the United States is planning on starting a major “psychological operation” that would seek to disrupt and curtail Taliban use of radio and Internet communication in both Afghanistan and Pakistan. The aim would be to hurt the insurgents’ ability to coordinate attacks and strategy, as well as their propaganda efforts […]
Jon Lee Anderson is a staff writer for The New Yorker and author of the “The Fall of Baghdad” and “The Lion’s Grave: Dispatches from Afghanistan”. Anderson is an accomplished journalist who has reported on Iraq, Afghanistan and Iran extensively. His most recent work for The New Yorker is entitled Can Iran Change?. I had […]
I woke up this morning, opened my laptop, and took a look at my Afghan feeder and found one theme in yesterday’s news, death. If anyone needed to be shown how troubled the conflict still was all they need to hear are these three troubling and sad stories: Afghan officials are reporting that NATO airstrikes […]
Here are some Afghan-related issues to Check Out! Check out this intriguing story of the Last Jew in Afghanistan, which features a five minute video interview of you got it, the last Jew in Afghanistan. The short documentary by Oliver Englehart, profiles Zablon Simantov, a Jewish resident of Kabul, explains why he remains despite his […]
It took a matter of days for the Obama administration to get baptized into the irregular and hard to define modern way of warfare we live in today and one of their first decisions appears to be under fire, at least mildly. In late February, Obama administration Justice officials, in a two sentence court filing, […]