Geography Archives: Afghanistan

  Listen to the interview with Jerica Arents and Mary Dean: Jerica Arents: What’s interesting, we heard many people who are in higher echelons of society [in Bamiyan Province in Afghanistan] say that “US forces need to stay, they are protecting us,” but ordinary people, ordinary Afghans, whom we talked to said, “We want the […]

While the US may be the world’s single superpower in military terms, it faces another superpower: the voices of war-weary millions who detest violence and killing.  In Afghanistan, in the United States, and among the populations of countries whose governments have joined the NATO coalition, millions of people are calling for an end to war […]

In the mirror of Afghanistan, the American soldier sees the ghost of the defeat in Viet Nam. Fahd Bahady is a Syrian cartoonist.  This cartoon was published in his blog on 3 May 2010; it is reproduced here for non-profit educational purposes.  The text above is an interpretation of the cartoon by Yoshie Furuhashi.  | […]

Eneko Las Heras, born in Caracas in 1963, is a cartoonist based in Spain.  This cartoon was published on his blog . . . Y sin embargo se mueve on 30 July 2010.  | Print

  “But we’re fucking losing this thing.” — Staff Sergeant Kennith Hicks This video was released by Brave New Films on 26 June 2010.  See, also, Michael Hastings, “The Runaway General” (Rolling Stone, 22 June 2010). | Print  

  Marzieh Hashemi: American geologists say Afghanistan is filled with minerals, from iron ore, lithium, to gold and much more.  The values of the minerals are said to be estimated at around a trillion dollars. . . .  Would a mineral-rich Afghanistan affect the way that the United States is running its war machine there? […]

Bomber Pilot: “From here they look like ants.” Newspaper Reader: “And from here, too.” Eneko Las Heras, born in Caracas in 1963, is a cartoonist.  This cartoon was published on his blog . . . Y sin embargo se mueve on 8 May 2009.   Translation by Yoshie Furuhashi (@yoshiefuruhashi | yoshie.furuhashi [at] gmail.com). | […]

During the House debate over the Kucinich resolution calling for a timetable for military withdrawal from Afghanistan, Rep. Bob Filner, chair of the House Committee on Veterans’ Affairs, pointed out that hundreds of thousands of veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars have gone to the VA for service-related injuries. The video of Filner’s statement […]

The antiwar movement is all but dead and buried.  Turnout at the March 20th, 7th year anniversary of the Iraq invasion in Washington D.C. was pitiful, estimated at approximately ten thousand.  To make matters worse, approval of the war in Afghanistan has not fallen, but slightly increased in the last few months as U.S. marines […]

“In the police you see the dirty work of Empire at close quarters. The wretched prisoners huddling in stinking cages of the lock-ups, the grey cowed faces of the long-term convicts, the scarred buttocks of the men who had been flogged with bamboos.” –George Orwell, Shooting An Elephant and Other Essays “. . . the […]

  After fourteen hours of negotiations, the Jan Peter Balkenende government failed, on Saturday, 20 February, to agree on whether to maintain the Dutch contingent in Afghanistan.  The Prime Minister announced, in the middle of the night, the resignation of his coalition, which included his party the Christian Democratic Appeal (CDA), the (social democrat) Labor […]

It is almost a commonplace, at least for the real — as opposed to the cruise-missile — left, that the flow of information, opinion, and moral indignation in the United States adapts well to the demands of state policy.  If the state is hostile to Iran, even openly trying to engage in “regime change,” and […]

Take a look at the map.  Afghanistan is next to or near Iran, Russia, China, Pakistan, and India.  These are all countries that are vitally important to the United States as key allies or enemies, and as potential economic and political competitors.  Afghanistan is also next to Turkmenistan and other Central Asian Republics that are […]

Like the peaks of the Hindu Kusch dominating much of Afghanistan, the war in that unhappy country increasingly overshadows the political scenery in Germany.  Parallels with the situation in the USA are unmistakable. On December 3rd the Bundestag voted on prolonging the use of German troops in Afghanistan for another year.  But before the delegates […]

  Additional number of American troops President Obama plans to deploy to Afghanistan: 30,000 Total number of U.S. troops that will be there after the deployment: 98,000 Number of private contractors working for the U.S. in Afghanistan as of September 2009: 104,101 Percent by which that number grew between June and September: 40 Percent of […]

Military Families Speak Out, an organization of over 4,000 military families opposed to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, issued the following statement in response to last night’s speech by President Obama regarding Afghanistan. President Obama’s decision to escalate the war in Afghanistan by deploying another 30,000 troops has sent the message to military families […]

Is it just me, or is the pontification of Western leaders about corruption in Afghanistan growing rather tiresome? There is something very Captain Renault about it.  We’re shocked, shocked that the Afghans have sullied our morally immaculate occupation of their country with their dirty corruption.  How ungrateful can they be? But perhaps we should consider […]

Part 1: Eight Years and Counting The United States invasion and occupation of Afghanistan entered its ninth year in October, and the majority of Americans now tell opinion polls they want it to end.  So far the war has failed to achieve U.S. objectives, and it is likely the Obama Administration’s expansion of the fighting […]

  “I thought as soon as we hit the ground, we would immediately start changing things and making it better for the people, but, during the entire time I was there, we rarely did any kind of humanitarian aid missions.  They have a lot of social issues that they are dealing with, like poverty and […]

  The Anthony Hyman Memorial Lecture, School of Oriental and African Studies University of London, 2009 I feel both honoured and gratified to be offering the 7th Anthony Hyman Memorial Lecture.  This gives me the opportunity to acknowledge my debt of gratitude to Tony for his unwavering support and friendship over the years.  When I […]