Afghanistan

By Tony Iltis, Green Left Weekly
August 15, 2010 -- The cover of the August 9 edition edition of Time magazine featured a shocking picture of Bibi Aisha, a young woman whose nose and ears had been cut off. The photo was accompanied by the headline: “What happens if we leave Afghanistan”. However, what happened to Aisha took place in Afghanistan under Western occupation.
In return for allowing Time to publish her photo, Aisha was flown to the US for reconstructive surgery. However, although Time ensured her mutilated face was seen worldwide, they appear less keen for her voice to be heard.
“I heard Aisha's story from her a few weeks before the image of her face was displayed all over the world”, Ann Jones, author of Kabul in Winter, wrote in the August 12 Nation. “She told me that her father-in-law caught up with her after she ran away, and took a knife to her on his own; village elders later approved, but the Taliban didn't figure at all in this account.

[Image: REUTERS]
RAWA News, August 5, 2010 -- US-led forces in Afghanistan regularly launch attacks on alleged militant hideouts, but the strikes usually result in civilian casualties.
The American forces launched two airstrikes in Nangarhar province on Thursday morning, witnesses said.
One of the attacks left at least 30 people dead and injured. The other strike, which hit a funeral procession in a separate area, killed 28 civilians including two children.

On July 25, WikiLeaks released the Afghan War Diary, comprising more than 91,000 reports on the US-led war in Afghanistan, including details of Afghan civilians murdered by the occupation forces. Visit here for the complete list of documents.

July 18, 2010
By Pip Hinman, Green Left Weekly
Defence minister Senator John Faulkner has joined the list of cabinet members who, since Julia Gillard became prime minister, have said they will resign from the front bench after the upcoming elections.
He dismissed suggestions that this was because he had doubts about the unpopular war in Afghanistan, which he has the task of promoting.
On May 21, I met with Faulkner as part of a delegation from seven anti-war groups. We lobbied — unsuccessfully — in support of legislation proposed by the Greens to prevent governments involving Australia in any war without the approval of parliament.

[Pictured: Afghans protest against foreign occupation forces at a July 11 protest in Mazar-i-Sharif. Photo from Morningstaronline.co.uk.]
By Tom Mellen, Morning Star
Citizens rallied in two Afghan cities on July 10 and 11, chanting slogans against occupying powers and the unpopular regime of President Hamid Karzai for failing to protect civilians.
On July 10, hundreds took to the streets of Mazar-i-Sharif to demand that all occupation forces leave.
The protest was organised after an artillery barrage from occupying NATO forces killed six civilians in Paktia province on July 8 and US troops killed two civilians in a pre-dawn raid in the city on July 7.

By Tony Iltis, Green Left Weekly
June 27, 2010 -- On June 25, ABC News Radio reported 79 occupation soldiers had been killed so far that month, the highest number in any month since the October 2001 US-led invasion.
On June 23, US President Barack Obama sacked the commander of US-led occupation forces in Afghanistan, General Stanley McChrystal — but not for the rising body count.

Green Left Weekly, June 26, 2010
The deaths of three Australian commandos in a helicopter crash on June 21 should bring home the message: it's time to leave Afghanistan.
The deaths bring the total number of Australians killed in the occupation to 16. This, not to mention the countless thousands of Afghan deaths, should be enough reason to call an end to Australian participation in this war.

By Pip Hinman, Green Left Weekly
SYDNEY, May 30, 2010 -- A national mobilisation by a newly-formed Australia Hazara Council today brought 1000 Hazara refugees into the streets in the centre of Sydney. They were protesting the Karzai regime's "Talibanisation" of Afghanistan, through which their land, livelihood and families are being displaced by the Taliban, under the nose of the Western occupation forces.

Sunday, May 23, 2010, Green Left Weekly -- US investigative journalist Seymour Hersh told an audience at a journalism conference in April that American soldiers are now executing prisoners in Afghanistan, a May 12 Rawstory.com article said.
Hersh helped break the story that US jailers were torturing detainees at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. In 1969, Hersh broke the story of the My Lai massacre by US forces in Afghanistan.

Tony Iltis, Green Left Weekly
11 April 2010 -- When the US and its allies invaded Afghanistan in 2001, they brought a president with them — Hamid Karzai.
Unlike some powerful (and brutal) warlords in his government, Karzai has no private army. But like the warlords, he is loathed by the people.