Afghanistan

( Tomdispatch.com ) – Ukraine is obviously a powder keg. With each passing day, in fact, the war there poses new threats to the world order. Only recently, Vladimir Putin’s Russia intensified its attacks on civilian targets in that beleaguered land, while threatening to use tactical nuclear weapons and adding Ukraine’s neighbor Belarus to its […]

Afghanistan

Did Trump’s attempt to Withdraw from Afghanistan and Somalia Prove he Knew he had lost?

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – It has long been known that on November 11, 2020, as it became clear that Joe Biden had won, then president Donald Trump signed an order for the complete withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan and Somalia before the January inaugural. At the January 6 Commission public hearing on Thursday, […]

Afghanistan

In Afghanistan, Resistance Means Women: Nationwide Protests Follow Deadly Attack on Hazara Girls Taking Exam

Human Rights Watch

By Sahar Fetrat Assistant Researcher, Women’s Rights Division and Fereshta Abbasi Researcher, Asia Division | – ( Human Rights Watch) – The September 30 suicide attack on ethnic Hazara students at Kaaj Educational Center in Kabul has sparked protests by women and girls in provinces across Afghanistan. The attack, which took place as female students […]

Afghanistan

That Time Gorbachev Announced Soviet Withdrawal from Afghanistan and US went on Building up Muslim Fundamentalists there Anyway, leading to 9/11

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Mikhail Gorbachev’s passing yesterday at age 91 is a good occasion to review some of the profound mistakes of the Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush presidencies regarding Afghanistan. Reagan-era officials refused to believe that Premier Gorbachev actually intended to pull Soviet troops out of Afghanistan, though Gorbachev came into […]

Afghanistan

End America’s Collective Punishment of Afghans

Foreign Policy in Focus

By Farrah Hassen | – ( Foreign Policy in Focus) – A year has now passed since the tumultuous U.S. withdrawal from decades of war and occupation in Afghanistan. With the Taliban functionally in charge, the country faces a deteriorating humanitarian crisis and economic collapse. But instead of taking action to promote stability and reinvigorate […]

Afghanistan

Is Afghanistan Balkanizing under the Taliban Rule? On the one-year anniversary of their seizure of power, the Taliban now face a wholly different threat.

Foreign Policy in Focus

By Atal Ahmadzai ( Foreign Policy in Focus) – In the year since the fall of Kabul, Afghanistan has endured rapid and agonizing setbacks. Two decades of socio-economic and political gains have vanished under the dystopian rule of the Taliban. Furthermore, while peace is far from being realized, political violence, including the Taliban’s extrajudicial executions, […]

Afghanistan

The Taliban shifts Tactics in its Determination to Control and oppress Women

The Conversation

By Brian McQuinn, University of Regina; Cody Buntain, University of Maryland; and Laura Courchesne, University of Oxford | – (The Conversation) – Since the Taliban took over Afghanistan a year ago, it has barred girls from school, required women to wear burqas in public and banned women from travelling without a male chaperone. The Taliban […]

Afghanistan

Pact Act is Vindication for Vets after US Denied for Years that Burn Pits in Afghanistan and Iraq made them Ill

The Conversation

By Jason A. Higgins, Virginia Tech | – During a 13-month stint in Iraq that began in 2006, Heath Robinson served as a medic with the Ohio National Guard. Like thousands of others soldiers stationed there, he was routinely exposed to toxic smoke emanating from what are known as burn pits. Located near military bases, […]