Science, 11 March 2011 A detailed discussion of trends in civilian casualties, using data from Unama, the Afghan NGO ARM (called here ‘the highest-resolution data of all, describing individual incidents’), WikiLeaks and – for a first time – the full CIVCAS (civilian casualty) data collected by ISAF. Discrepancies between the data are explained: ISAF only […]
Recommended Reads
National Review, 10 March 2011 Ahmad K. Majidyar, a senior research associate at the American Enterprise Institute, reviews (some) Afghan opinion on this issue.
Recommended Reads
Christian Science Monitor, 10 March 2011 ‘After stressing for years that removing insurgent sanctuaries in Pakistan is vital to winning the war in Afghanistan, US military officials are subtly deemphasizing the importance of that goal as realities on the ground shift’, reports Anna Mulrine. She quotes Lt. Gen. David Rodriguez, commander of US troops in […]
Recommended Reads
Afghanistan Study Group blog, 10 March 2011 In the farmland west of Kandahar City the US Army is building what it calls a “Security and Commerce Wall” as part of its strategy to protect the Afghan people…. err…. the military convoys.
Recommended Reads
Washington Post, 8 March 2011 ‘Many of the U.S. experts deployed as part of a
Recommended Reads
Newsweek, 27 February 2011 Interesting article quoting Taleban who are dusgisted with Taleban abuses and worried about the breakdown of discipline: “We were playing with the lives of people. We killed and harmed innocents, just as the infidel Americans do.” and “In the 16 years of the Taliban’s military and political life, this is our […]
Recommended Reads
AP, 27 February 2011 A peek inside the world of fuel trucking. AP’s Kathy Gannon and Anja Niedringhaus ride with a fuel truck from Quetta to Kandahar.
Recommended Reads
Global Post, 24 February 2011 Jean MacKenzie’s account of the ‘gender bias, ethnic tensions, and political divisions [that] all came to a head in an ugly incident’ involving a female Pashtun parliamentarian and Haji Mohaqeq, leader of a Hazara faction in parliament – with some additional facts to AAN’s blog ‘Willing, able and Uzbek’.
Recommended Reads
Washington Post, 17 February 2011 The authors look at what is preached in Kabul’s mosques during the Friday sermons – a find a lot of hatred and xenophobia against ‘these Christians and Jews’: . ‘Let these brothers of monkeys, gorillas and pigs leave this country. The people of Afghanistan should determine their own fate.
Recommended Reads
Le Monde diplomatique (German), Febr. 2011 Herald Tribune author William Pfaff asks ‘the fundamental question’ whether it ‘has it been a terrible error for the United States to have built an all but irreversible worldwide system of a thousand or more military bases, stations and outposts’ and whether it has not, as planned, enhanced American […]
Recommended Reads
Wall Street Journal, 15 February 2011 ‘Prices of many staples and basic supplies have surged in Afghanistan, where public discontent is a security liability for the government in Kabul’ and ‘Where Afghans are paying more, it is often foreign nations footing the bill’, the author points out. He also gives interesting data on prices and […]
Recommended Reads
The New Yorker, 14 February 2011 Keywords: Afghanistan;Kabul Bank;(Pres.) Hamid Karzai;Khalil Ferozi;Corruption;Sherkhan Farnood;Mahmoud Karzai.
Recommended Reads
