Afghanistan Analysts Network – English

Month: February 2012

Guest Blog: No Frontpage News? Afghanistan’s Ongoing IDP Crisis

Susanne Schmeidl • Dan Tyler •

A powerful article published in the New York Times on 3 February 2011 has raised the critical question about what, if anything, humanitarian agencies are doing to address the growing IDP crisis in Afghanistan and how many children (and adults) have to die until the international community is willing to wake up and admit that […]

Migration Read more

Leaving Afghan Development in the Wrong Hands

admin •

Foreign Affairs, 13 February 2012 A balanced and critical look at the National Solidarity Programme and its CDCs which are usually hailed in a one-sided manner as one of the Afghan success stories.

Recommended Reads Read more

The truth about Taliban ‘reintegration’

admin •

Sunday Telegraph, 12 February 2012 ‘The much-vaunted “reintegration” of the Taliban’, which – among other countries – Britain and Germany have funded with substantial amounts, ‘is not quite what it seems’, writes Ben Farmer. in Helmand province, it ‘has attracted only 19 militants’ and in Sarepul, 200 ex-insurgents ‘have recently been struck off the programme, […]

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450 Bases and It’s Not Over Yet

admin •

Tom Dispatch (blog), 12 February 2012 ‘The hush-hush, high-tech, super-secure facility at the massive air base in Kandahar’ – ‘The American military in Afghanistan doesn’t want to talk about it, but one day soon, it will be a new hub for the American drone war in the Greater Middle East’ – is only one of […]

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تاريخ را آن‌گونه كه است بنويسيد! (Write the History As It Is!)

admin •

Mandegar (Kabul), 11 February 2012 The Kabul-based daily criticises the decision of the Afghan Ministry of Education to issue new textbooks that end in 1973 and leave out all the recent wars: ‘It is not the first time that we experience false writing of history in Afghanistan. […] If you read the world history there […]

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War Without Accountability: The CIA, Special Forces and plans for Afghanistan’s future

Kate Clark •

That US Special Forces are likely to remain in Afghanistan after 2014 and for the long haul, has been discussed for some time. According to The Washington Post, which went to a talk by the former head of US Special Operations Forces (SOF) in Afghanistan, Admiral Bill McRaven, at the National Defence Industrial Association in […]

International Engagement Read more

Roads to Nowhere: Program to Win Over Afghans Fails

admin •

Wall Street Journal, 10 February 2012 Dion Nissenbaum reports on the USAID, IRD-implemented campaign to build 1200 miles of road in insurgency-affected areas. A long list of the many things that can go wrong when you start using ‘aid as a weapons system’, including immense wastage, silly projects (think ‘flower literacy’), violence, local conflict, abandoned […]

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Afghan private security handover looking messy

admin •

Seattle PI, 10 February 2012 Heidi Vogt describes the confusion,concerns and delays surrounding the hand-over of the private security business to the Ministry of Interior, set to be finalised by 20 March.

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Protests and Factional Conflict in Sarepul

Thomas Ruttig •

Since 8 December last year, demonstrations are continuing in Sarepul. While this remote northern province has been one of the areas least affected by the insurgency for many years, of late it has been pulled into the vortex of the Northern insurgency, too. But the protests have a different background: their origins lie in local […]

Rights and Freedoms Read more

US Marines posed with Nazi symbol in Afghanistan

admin •

AP, 9 February 2011 Not what you think: It means ‘Scout Sniper’, and the Marine Corps Corps said in a statement that ‘investigators determined it was a naïve mistake’ and the soldiers did not identify with nazi ideas. According to the AP, the photo was taken in September 2010 in Sangin.

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In Afghanistan, a new approach to teaching history: Leave out the wars

admin •

Washington Post, 5 February 2012 ‘A series of government-issued textbooks funded by the United States and several foreign aid organizations do just that, pausing history in 1973. There is no mention of the Soviet war, the mujaheddin, the Taliban or the U.S. military presence. In their efforts to promote a single national identity, Afghan leaders […]

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Talks Have Not Stopped Killing of Afghan Civilians

Kate Clark •

The number of Afghan civilians being killed in the war has risen yet again, according to UNAMA’s yearly assessment of civilian casualties for 2011. The eight per cent increase since 2010 (25 per cent increase since 2009) is largely due to the actions of ‘anti-government elements’, as the UN refers to the insurgents who are, […]

War and Peace Read more

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