War without purposeChris Hedges, Truthdig: No one seems to be able to articulate why we are in Afghanistan. Is it to hunt down bin Laden and al-Qaida? Is it to consolidate progress? Have we declared war on the Taliban? Are we building democracy? Are we fighting terrorists there so we do not have to fight them here? Are we 'liberating' the women of Afghanistan? The absurdity of the questions, used as thought-terminating cliches, exposes the absurdity of the war. The confusion of purpose mirrors the confusion on the ground. We don't know what we are doing.
The Canadian Press: Al-Qaida and other hard-core terrorists groups are behind only a fraction of the attacks carried out in Afghanistan over a four-year period... Ethnic Pashtun Taliban were responsible for 97 per cent of the bombings, ambushes and kidnappings... Violence is driven from the ground up rather than from outside the country. Washington and Ottawa for years have claimed the troops are fighting international terrorists in Afghanistan in order to prevent attacks in North America... Civilian bombings and shootings by NATO forces have contributed to the growing violence... Kandahar City and the surrounding area, where Canada's 2,850 troops and aircrew are based, was the most violent region in the country.
Juan Cole, in TomDispatch: Few of the Pashtuns in question, even the rebellious ones, are really Taliban; few so-called Taliban are entwined with what little is left of al-Qaeda in the region; and Iran and Russia are not, of course, actually supporting the latter. There maybe plausible reasons for which the US and NATO wish to spend blood and treasure in an attempt to forcibly shape the politics of the 38 million Pashtuns on either side of the Durand Line in the twenty-first century. That they form a dire menace to the security of the North Atlantic world is not one of them.
The Globe and Mail: Two thirds of the deaths caused by the Afghan government forces or its international allies came in air strikes.
Truthout: Orzala Ashraf Nemat, a leading civil society and human rights activist in Kabul, disagrees with the US troop buildup. 'As an Afghan woman I feel the military is definitely not the solution... Look at what is happening with the troop increase. This year there is more violence and more fighting and more threats, more suicide bombings. Women and children are the main victims of fighting and war... Sweeta Noori, Afghanistan's country director for Women for Women International [said] the vast majority of women in Afghanistan have seen no improvement in gender-based discrimination and violence... Women's rights have actually deteriorated as a direct consequence of deliberate US policy, including alliances with warlords hostile to women's rights... 'Additionally, the US war has fueled a misogynist insurgency that has only gotten stronger and worsened anti-woman sentiment.'
The Guardian: The law has already achieved its aim -- instilling fear and insecurity among an already traumatised female population... Jamila Barekzai is a police officer whose female colleague was killed last year in Kandahar for daring to do a man's job... 'The biggest problem facing women today in Afghanistan, aside from illiteracy, is the lack of support. It is always the intention of men to keep women in their cages. To keep women down.'
