Category Archives: Afghanistan

A Reading List to Put the WikiLeaks ‘War Logs’ in Context

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Much of what is on Wikileaks is already in circulation but not in one place

Australian founder of whistleblowing website, 'WikiLeaks', Julian Assange, holds up a copy of today's Guardian newspaper during a press conference in London on July 26, 2010. (LEON NEAL/AFP/Getty Images)

by Nicholas Kusnetz and Karen Weise ProPublica

This morning, The New York Times [1], England’s The Guardian [2] and Germany’s Der Spiegel [3] published reports on what’s been termed the “War Logs”—nearly 92,000 documents about the war in Afghanistan made public by WikiLeaks. To put the leaked documents in context, we pulled together some of the best, past reporting on the main themes in the reports.

Pakistan’s influence on Afghanistan

The documents suggest [4] that Pakistan’s intelligence service has been aiding the Taliban and the Afghan insurgency. (See some of the documents here [5].) At the heart of this debate is the question Dexter Filkins posed in his Pulitzer-Prize winning coverage [6] in late 2007: “Whose side is Pakistan really on?”  Continue reading →

Wikileaks releases 90,000 Afghan war documents

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We probably are hopelessly mired in another Vietnam trying to win an un-winnable war

Soldiers in Afghanistan (image: Guardian.co.uk)Wikileaks has release 90,000 official documents on the Afghan war. Canada has lost 151 soldiers and created several thousand disabled veterans.  The US has lost 1,000 men and women, the UK 320.  Civilian deaths may be as high as 33,000.  BBC

When you consider the casualty statistics in Vietnam, that’s not bad. But is it going anywhere or is the Afghan war hopeless?

The 90,000 documents released by Wikileaks point to ineptitude on the part of military leaders, complicity by Pakistan with the Taliban, and and every increasing amount of violence.
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Military and Congress slow to respond to brain injured soldiers

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Part 2 of Brain Injuries Undiagnosed in Thousands of Soldiers and the response is slow

ABC News reporter Bob Woodruff is carried on a stretcher from a bus to a medical evacuation plane at Ramstein airbase, southern Germany, on Jan. 31, 2006. (Michael Probst/AP Photo)

See Part 2 of  Brain Injuries Undiagnosed in Thousands of Soldiers

by T. Christian Miller, ProPublica, and Daniel Zwerdling, NPR, ProPublica – WASHINGTON, D.C.

Missing Records

The military’s handling of traumatic brain injuries has drawn heated criticism before.

ABC News reporter Bob Woodruff chronicled the difficulties soldiers faced in getting treatment for head traumas after recovering from one himself, suffered in a 2006 roadside bombing in Iraq.

The following year, a Washington Post series about substandard conditions at Walter Reed Army Medical Hospital described the plight of several soldiers with brain injuries.Members of Congress responded by dedicating more than $1.7 billion to research and treatment of traumatic brain injury and post-traumatic stress, a psychological disorder common among soldiers returning from war. They passed a law requiring the military to test soldiers’ cognitive functions before and after deployment so brain injuries wouldn’t go undetected.

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$6 Billion Later Afghan Cops Aren’t Ready to Serve

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America has spent more than $6 billion since 2002 in an effort to create an effective Afghan police force but the program has been a disaster.

A DynCorp employee, in the background, overseas a rifle course for Afghan police at a military range east of Kabul. (Max Becherer/Polaris)

By by T. Christian Miller, ProPublica, Mark Hosenball and Ron Moreau, Newsweek, Pro-Publica and Newsweek – Mohammad Moqim watches in despair as his men struggle with their AK-47 automatic rifles, doing their best to hit man-size targets 50 meters away.

A few of the police trainees lying prone in the mud are decent shots, but the rest shoot clumsily, and fumble as they try to reload their weapons. The Afghan National Police (ANP) captain sighs as he dismisses one group of trainees and orders 25 more to take their places on the firing line. “We are still at zero,” says Captain Moqim, 35, an eight-year veteran of the force. “They don’t listen, are undisciplined, and will never be real policemen.”
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Held by the Taliban five part series

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Taliban fighters, photo: NY Times

Taliban fighters, photo: NY Times

7 Months, 10 Days in Captivity and Inside the Islamic Emirate

NY Times has started a gripping series by David Rohde a journalist who was held captive by the Taliban for seven months. This is reporting for which the NYT  is famous. The first two of the five part series are gripping.

Not a Twitter minute, the articles are well worth reading for the insight into the Taliban who are more sophisticated than previously thought.

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Canadian soldiers singing Taliban song

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Taliban Song by Canadian Soldiers

Taliban Song by Canadian Soldiers

Things we are learning in Afghanistan

NJN Network, Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, Canada, August 11, 2009 with story from LiveLeak

Warning – like traditional songs by soldiers may contain profanity and politically incorrect humor

Creative Commons License
Except where otherwise noted, this work is licensed under a Creative Commons License – NJN Network Inc.

Two sides of the same war in Afghanistan while two more Canadians die for little reason

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Taliban commander conducts attack on US convoy at Wadhi Kabaz

Taliban commander conducts attack on US convoy at Wadhi Kabaz

What are we doing dying in the poppy fields and deserts of Afghanistan

Stephen Pate, NJN Network, Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, Canada, August 2, 2009 with story from LiveLeak

The war on terrorism was all about stopping Osama Bin Laden from coming back and bombing our cities. Continue reading →

Pakistani government says Taliban leaving Swat Valley

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Taliban are in the Swat Valley and Buner District, near Islamabad (click for larger map)

Taliban are in the Swat Valley and Buner District, near Islamabad (click for larger map)

Pakistani government said “please” and the Taliban leave

By Stephen Pate, NJN Network, Charlottetown, PEI, Canada, April 25th, 2009 with reports from CBC and CNN

The CBC reported last night that the Taliban (1) pulled out of Buner, 60 miles from Islamabad the capital of Pakistan. They have moved back to the Swat Valley. Buner District is a mountain valley and lies south west of the Swat Valley in Pakistan. Continue reading →

Taliban positioned to take over nuclear weapons

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httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KqgEn42wdDM

By Stephen Pate, NJN Network, Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, Canada, April 24, 2009 with CBS clips

The Taliban are within 60 miles of Islamabad the capital of Pakistan. They are imposing Sharia law, a human rights versus religion issue. The bigger story is the inability of the Pakistan government to stop the Taliban. Sixty miles is one campaign from control of Pakistan’s military and a nuclear arsenal. No other scenario could spell as much danger for the United States and the Western World. The Taliban and their allies al-Qaida are dedicated to the destruction of Western culture.
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Karzai appears to be changing Afghan ‘rape’ law

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Maybe, says NDP MP Dawn Black “Show me”

By Stephen Pate,  NJN Network,  Charlottetown,  PEI,  Canada,  April 6, 2009 with stories from The Guardian UK CBC and Fox News.

Bowing to international pressure to remove a new law that removed human rights for women, Afghanistan’s President Karzai appears to be withdrawing the law or his support for it. They’re sending it back to the drawing board. In Canada women’s rights are part of the same Charter sentence that protects minorities including the disabled. Ironically, Canadian soldiers may be dying in Afghanistan to protect women’s right but the disabled are abused everyday by Canadian institutions. Continue reading →