US politics

Patricia Gossman | Associate Asia Director | – Human Rights Watch – Thursday’s bombing at Kabul’s international airport has drastically curtailed evacuation flights for at-risk Afghans. The effort was already winding down, after getting out some human rights defenders, women’s rights activists, journalists, interpreters, and others, but leaving many more behind to face growing threats. […]

Afghanistan

US Troops caught up in ISIL-K – Taliban Civil War: Why it Proves Biden was Right to Leave

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Al Jazeera Arabic reports that ISIL-K (the so-called “Islamic state group” of Iraq and the Levant in Khorasan) claimed responsibility for the horrific bombings in Kabul on Thursday near Baron Hotel and at Abbey Gate at Hamid Karzai International Airport. According to AP, the bombings killed 60 Afghans and wounded […]

Afghanistan

What is ISIS-K, the Organization that Bombed Kabul Airport?

The Conversation

By Amira Jadoon and Andrew Mines | – An attack on a crowd gathered outside Kabul’s airport on Aug. 26, 2021, has left at least 60 people dead, including at least a dozen U.S. Marines. ISIS-K claimed responsibility for the coordinated suicide bomb and gun assault, which came just days after President Joe Biden warned […]

Israel/ Palestine

Biden says he’s prioritizing Human Rights, but is welcoming an Israeli Prime Minister who boasts about War Crimes

Sahand Yazdanyar

( Otherwords.org ) – Biden can’t say he’s putting human rights first and then welcome a prime minister who boasts about war crimes to the White House. By Sahand Yazdanyar | August 25, 2021 In April 1996, Israeli artillery shells rained down on a United Nations compound where hundreds of civilians were taking refuge. As […]

Afghanistan

Perfect Storm: Hunger stalks 14 mn Afghans, 2 mn Children, from Taliban, War, climate-driven Drought, and Covid

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The United Nations’ World Food Program (WFP) announced a few days ago that 14 million people in Afghanistan are at risk of acute food insecurity in a matter of weeks. That is about a third of the population. It is up from 11 million last spring, when the WFP and […]

Afghanistan

The Taliban Religious Ideology is Blow-back from 200 Years of British Rule of India

The Conversation

By Sohel Rana and Sumit Ganguly | – Following the Taliban’s rapid taking of power in what it describes as a reestablished “Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan,” fears of a certain kind of Islamist ideology being brought back have led a large number of Afghans to flee, or fear for their lives. The Taliban were known […]

Afghanistan

The Neocons Strike Back: Blair’s Carping at Biden’s Afghanistan Withdrawal is Spite that He Couldn’t Recolonize the Muslim World

Middle East Monitor

By Nasim Ahmed | – ( Middle East Monitor ) – The architects of the “war on terror” have hit back following the humiliating US withdrawal from Afghanistan. From the political leaders who sanctioned never-ending wars to the intellectual high priests in journalism, academia and think tanks who cooked it up, exponents of Western imperialism […]

Democracy

How can America Promote Democracy When the GOP Half of the Country Doesn’t Believe in it?

John Feffer

( Foreign Policy in Focus) – America desperately needs a dose of its own medicine of democracy promotion. By John Feffer | August 25, 2021 Arizona’s Maricopa County is ground zero in the continuing debate over election integrity in the United States. The so-called audit of the 2.1 million votes cast in that county in […]

Afghanistan

Biden tells G-7 he accepts Aug. 31 Kabul Airport Deadline as Taliban, fearing Flight of Capital and Skills, Forbid Evacuations Thereafter

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The Taliban have further foreclosed U.S. options in the current effort to evacuate any remaining Americans and eligible Afghans from the country. President Biden said Tuesday that he was accepting the August 31 deadline laid down by the fundamentalist group for the US to be out of the Kabul Airport […]