Afghanistan Analysts Network – English

Month: August 2017

Femicide in Kandahar

AAN •

London Review of Books, 31 August 2017 May Jeong’s alternative look at assassinations of women in Kandahar: (…) millions (…) were spent on gender initiatives. (…) The money encouraged some women, mostly the daughters of already enlightened families, to go out into the world. A fifth of parliamentary seats were reserved for women. The police and the […]

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I Was a Mercenary. Trust Me: Erik Prince’s Plan Is Garbage.

AAN •

Politico, 31 August 2017 One from the horse’s mouth: Private warriors are just like T-shirts; they are cheaper in developing countries. Call it the globalization of private force. But do we want Filipino, Colombian and Ugandan mercenaries fighting our wars for us, their way? To them, military operations might involve massacring a village that could […]

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Taliban überschwemmen die Welt mit Heroin

AAN •

Rheinische Post (online), 29 August 2017 The German daily quotes AAN’s Jelena Bjelica in an article about Afghanistan’s drug economy (in German, behind a pay wall): Afghanistan bringt in diesem Jahr wohl die größte Opiumernte seiner Geschichte ein … sagt Jelena Bjelica vom Rechercheinstitut Afghanistan Analysts Network.

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Afghan citizen Gul Rahman froze to death in November 2002 in a CIA torture site north of Kabul. His family will now receive compensation. Photo: ACLU.

Held Accountable for Torture: CIA psychologists compensate family of dead Afghan

Kate Clark •

A landmark case in the United States means that, for the first time, two of those responsible for the CIA’s post-2001 torture programme, have been held accountable in the courts. Much of this torture programme was carried out on Afghan soil. The two psychologists who designed and implemented the programme, have paid compensation to two […]

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AAN on Afghanistan podiums: Stuttgart 30/8, Berlin 4/9, 20/9

Thomas Ruttig •

It is general election campaign time in Germany (the new Bundestag is to be elected on 24 September) and Afghanistan’s situation is making it into the discussion again, mainly related to refugee movements and the internal security situation. Chancelor Angela Merkel has just told daily taz in an extensive interview: “We should not send the […]

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Interview/Trump/Afghanistan: Thomas Ruttig, Afghanistan Analysts Network

Thomas Ruttig •

Deutschlandfunk, 22 August 217 Listen to an interview with AAN’s Thomas Ruttig about the new US strategy for Afghanistan under Trump (in German).

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Warlordismus in Afghanistan (u.v.m.)

Thomas Ruttig •

Aufwachen! (blog), 26 August 2017 More than 1 hour of podcast with AAN’s Thomas Ruttig, about the roots, the development and the current situation of the Afghn conflict(s) (in German).

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The void in Trump’s Afghanistan strategy

Thomas Ruttig •

Daily Times, 26 August 2017 Op-ed by AA’s Thomas Ruttig in the Pakistani daily, looking at Donald Trump’s refusal to do state building in Afghanistan as a major void in his Afghanistan strategy, given Afghanistan’s weak, superficial democratic institutions. He concludes: A country as ethnically, religiously, politically and socially diverse as Afghanistan needs reliable institutions […]

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Afghanistan’s New Law on Freedom of Assembly: Limiting the space to demonstrate

Ehsan Qaane •

A new law on freedom of assembly is under consideration in Afghanistan. The National Security Council (NSC) decided to replace the current Law on Gatherings, Demonstrations and Strikes (hereafter called the Assembly Law) after the deadly explosion which targeted protesters in the Deh Mazang area of Kabul on 23 July 2016. A draft of the […]

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Is Russia Really Arming the Taliban?

Martine van Bijlert •

The Atlantic, 25 August 2017 AAN’s Thomas Ruttig comments on whether Russia is involved in arming the Taliban: Thomas Ruttig, co-director of the Afghanistan Analysts Network, told me in an email that while Russia might be quite happy to see the 16-year-old U.S. mission in Afghanistan fail, tracking arms supplies to the militants is nearly […]

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The Financial Cost Of U.S. Involvement In Afghanistan

AAN •

Forbes, 24 August 2017 The intervention in Afghanistan has cost the US $1.07 trillion dollars since 2001. The  bill can be divided into three segments. Overseas Contingency Operations funds specifically dedicated to the war come to $773 billion. $243 billion can be attributed to increases in the base budget of the Department of Defense while […]

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Pakistan in the crosshairs of Trump’s Afghan strategy

AAN •

al-Jazeera, 24 August 2017 Longer quotes of AAN’s Kate Clark in this article about Trump’s Pakistan-related remarks in his 21 August Afghanistan address: “On the Afghan side, it’s always assumed that the US could sort out Pakistan if it wanted to … and I think that’s a wrong assumption. I think it’s much more tricky,” […]

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