Afghanistan

The Government Endangered us with Foreign Quagmires; it’s the Bradley Mannings that might keep us safe (Madar)

Chase Madar writes at Tomdispatch.com The prosecution of Bradley Manning, WikiLeaks’ source inside the U.S. Army, will be pulling out all the stops when it calls to the stand a member of Navy SEAL Team 6, the unit that assassinated Osama bin Laden. The SEAL (in partial disguise, as his identity is secret) is expected to tell […]

Afghanistan

Obama pledged investigation of Alleged Taliban Prisoner Massacre by US-Backed Afghan Warlords; Where is it? (Currier)

Juan Cole

Cora Currier writes at ProPublica In his first year in office, President Barack Obama pledged to “collect the facts” on the death of hundreds, possibly thousands, of Taliban prisoners of war at the hands of U.S.-allied Afghan forces in late 2001. Almost four years later, there’s no sign of progress. When asked by ProPublica about […]

Afghanistan

Obama: US will Continue its Targeted Killing with Drones (Woods)

Juan Cole

Chris Woods writes at the Bureau of Investigative Journalism Barack Obama has made it clear that the US will continue with its controversial targeted killing programme. In a major speech the US president also announced that he has signed into force a new – and secret – rule book for lethal action that provides ‘clear […]

Afghanistan

Karzai admits taking CIA money; Galbraith: We’re not getting what we pay for

Juan Cole

Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai on Monday confirmed an NYT report that he has been receiving cash payments in a paper bag every month from the US Central Intelligence Agency. Karzai maintained that the money actually goes to the director of national intelligence to be used for intelligence work, but the implication of the NYT article […]

Afghanistan

America’s Murder Inc. Abroad: Engelhardt on Scahill’s Latest

Juan Cole

Tom Engelhardt writes at Tomdispatch.com: Chalmers Johnson’s book Blowback: The Costs and Consequences of American Empire was published in March 2000 — and just about no one noticed. Until then, blowback had been an obscure term of CIA tradecraft, which Johnson defined as “the unintended consequences of policies that were kept secret from the American people.” In […]

Afghanistan

Report: Highest US Officials Responsible for Use of Torture (Plus Daily Show Video)

Juan Cole

The political reality of the United States in the world is that of blowback. Blowback is a term of art in the intelligence community for what happens when a covert operation goes bad and comes back to bite you on the ass. The US spent the 1980s encouraging Muslim radicals to engage in ‘freedom fighting’ […]

Afghanistan

Kerry Cajoles Afghanistan and Iraq, as Bush’s former colonies decline to Toe the Line

Juan Cole

Secretary of State John Kerry just made trips to Afghanistan and Iraq, the Bush administration’s two trophy states, in an attempt to shore up rapidly declining American influence in the two. In Afghanistan, the mood is turning against a US troop presence after 2014. In the last couple of weeks, President Hamid Karzai successfully insisted […]

Afghanistan

US Drone Campaign in Pakistan: Amazing Infographic (Serle)

Juan Cole

Jack Serle writes at the Bureau of Investigative Journalism Pitch Interactive have visualised every CIA drone strike and every casualty in Pakistan. A new interactive graphic, which uses the Bureau’s drone data, has brought a fresh perspective to the CIA’s nine-year drone campaign in Pakistan. A team of developers has pulled together every known drone […]

Afghanistan

Two Bombings Kill 18 As Hagel Arrives in Afghanistan

Juan Cole

The Taliban appear to have strategized embarrassing new Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel. As he arrived in Kabul on his first visit to Afghanistan, a suicide bomber on a bicycle detonated his payload in front of the Ministry of Defense, killing nine civilian bystanders. This was obviously a purely symbolic act, since it did no […]