When are we going to wake up? When is the war in Afghanistan going to become a burning issue in this country? When is it going to become a burning issue for the British peace movement?
As we approach the eighth anniversary of the invasion of Afghanistan, we see a welcome, if belated and timid, awakening of concern about the war in mainstream circles in both Britain and the US. What about the peace movement? If we are honest with ourselves, neither the traditional peace movement nor…
Confronted with evidence of wide-ranging fraud on his behalf in Afghanistan’s recent presidential election, Hamid Karzai told Le Figaro: “There was fraud in 2004, and there is today, and there will be tomorrow.”
He had a point. While Tony Blair praised the 2004 presidential elections as a “magnificent tribute … to the power of democracy”, the reality was very different.
Vote early, vote often
Then, as now, “Voters in many rural areas [were] told by warlords and…
In Peter Davis’s documentary Hearts and Minds, Walt Rostow – a man with ample blood on his hands – famously lost his cool when asked to explain how the US got involved in Vietnam, demanding that the clip be dropped from the film… while on film. Rostow’s fulminations are a high point of the movie, and his eventual answer (“The problem began in its present phase after the Sputnik…”) incredible in the literal sense of the word. It was a good question, and I’ve yet to give a talk on Afghanistan…
A recent poll in Afghanistan has found a majority condemning Western airstrikes in the country, and calling for a negotiated settlement with the Taliban.
Escalation
Meanwhile US president Barack Obama continues with his escalation of the Afghan conflict. On 17 February, it was reported that Obama had authorised the deployment of up to 17,000 extra US troops to Afghanistan. According to the BBC poll (see below for more details), this is a highly unpopular move.
73%…
According to the Washington Post, “the incoming [Obama] administration does not anticipate that the Iraq-like ‘surge’ of forces will significantly change the direction of a conflict that has steadily deteriorated over the past seven years” but instead “expects that the new deployments… will help buy enough time for the new administration to reappraise the entire Afghanistan war effort and develop a comprehensive new strategy for what Obama has called ‘the central front on terror’” (13…
On 10 December, the former minister Kim Howells, who was in charge of Afghanistan at the Foreign Office for over three years before he stepped down in October, spoke up in the House of Commons, and lambasted the war effort.
Howells accused Afghanistan of corruption at the “institutional, provincial and personal level”. There are “few signs that the chaotic hegemony of warlords, gangsters, presidential placemen, incompetent and under-resourced provincial governors and self-serving…
Over two-thirds of the British public want all British troops withdrawn from Afghanistan within 12 months, according to a new BBC poll. Meanwhile, five million Afghans are facing a winter of starvation because of “donor fatigue”.
The BBC/ICM poll, published to coincide with a 13 November Radio 4 debate on withdrawal from Afghanistan, met with a resounding silence from the political establishment, and the barest of mentions within the mainstream media.
The Ministry of Defence…
Back in September eight short video films were shown in Stroud to mark World Peace Day. Collectively the films tried to answer this question: what does it take to build peace? The screening of the films was followed by a discussion with some of the film makers on the subject “Can Art promote a culture of peace?” Heady stuff and around 30 people attended and took part. I attended too and found each of the eight films powerful in their various ways. The film that most touched me, however, was…
At least 40 civilians were killed in an airstrike on a wedding party in Shah Wali Kot in Kandahar province in Afghanistan on 3 November. 40 is the official Afghan government estimate; local residents reported that 90 people had been killed or wounded.
“I counted 90 dead bodies,” said Abdul Rahim, 26, who said he was a survivor of the family that hosted the wedding party. “I saw them with my own eyes,” he said in a telephone interview from Kandahar Province.
Rahim told…
Building on plans and programmes set in motion by the outgoing Bush administration, president-elect Barack Obama intends to escalate the US war in Afghanistan, and to force Britain to sharply increase its troop strength there from 8,000 to 11,000 soldiers on the ground.
There are already plans to spend $100 million next year expanding Kandahar airport to house 26 Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (ISR) aircraft for a US army ODIN (“observe, detect, identify and…
While the majority of Afghans want a negotiated solution to the present conflict, the outgoing Bush administration seems to see negotiations only as a tactic to weaken the enemy. At the same time, the incoming Obama administration seems to be turning against the idea of holding next year’s Afghan presidential elections.
As pointed out in previous PNs, a September 2007 poll found 74% of people in Afghanistan favoured negotiations between the Kabul government and the Taliban, and 54…
It is hard not to get carried away by the hysteria of Obamania.
Those wishing to keep a level head should certainly keep away from the mainstream media. Jonathan Freedland, writing about Barack Obama’s July speech in Berlin for the UK’s most progressive national newspaper the Guardian, breathlessly reported that the Democratic US presidential nominee “almost floated into view, walking to the podium on a raised, blue-carpeted runway as if he were somehow, magically, walking on…
While the war in Afghanistan continues to escalate, a British diplomat and a British military commander have made headlines with their outspoken realism about the conflict.
The leaked draft US National Intelligence Estimate on Afghanistan describes the country as in a “downward spiral”.
A French diplomat’s secret report of his meeting with British ambassador to Afghanistan Sir Sherard Cowper-Coles has been leaked, causing embarrassment.
Cowper-Coles is alleged to…
At the end of September, the Observer revealed that Britain has been supporting Afghan peace negotiations with the leadership of the Taliban, despite official denials – opening up the prospect of division with the US.
Though ordinary Afghans overwhelmingly back a negotiated settlement, Britain officially rejects talks except with “those within the Taliban who are genuinely prepared to leave the path of violence and engage in the legitimate political process” (Foreign Office…
At the end of August, Philip Alston, United Nations special rapporteur on illegal government killings, said his chief concern was the policy of night raids by foreign intelligence agencies.
These raids took place without accountability to the Afghan government, and left those subjected to them with three choices; “They can either stay in their home and run the risk of being shot in their bed. Secondly, they could try and run, in which they would be shot, or thirdly, they fire back in…
