Afghanistan Analysts Network – English

Sudhansu Verma

Leaving Afghan Development in the Wrong Hands

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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.

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The truth about Taliban ‘reintegration’

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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

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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!)

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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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Roads to Nowhere: Program to Win Over Afghans Fails

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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

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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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US Marines posed with Nazi symbol in Afghanistan

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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

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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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Truth, lies and Afghanistan – How military leaders have let us down

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Armed Forces Journal, February 2012 US army officer who travelled all over Afghanistan describes the situation (“bad to abysmal”) and the credibility gap between reality and spin: “No one expects our leaders to always have a successful plan. But we do expect — and the men who do the living, fighting and dying deserve — […]

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U.S.-Backed Militia Fortifies Afghanistan’s ‘Heart of Darkness’

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Wired, 1 February 2012 Part 1 of an interesting reportage about US forces on the Marzak Trail (find out what this is) in Afghanistan’s ‘Heart of Darkness’, ie Paktika province.

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Afghan President Hamid Karzai ‘plans talks with Taliban’

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BBC, 29 January 2012 The Afghan government is planning to meet Taleban representatives in Saudi Arabia in what appears to be an attempt to jump-start their own channel for peace talks, in possible competition to the US/German Qatar channel. The BBC reports that the meeting ‘will come in the coming weeks, before the establishment of […]

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