For most of her life, the young Afghan woman was fleeing war. But everywhere she went it stalked her.
"She was very quiet and shy, and you could barely hear her speak," said Ashley Jackson of Oxfam. "When the civil war began in the early 1990s, she left Kabul and went to the border. But her son was killed by a rocket attack.
"She went to Pakistan and lived in a refugee settlement, and her daughter was taken by a man who wanted her. When the Taliban fell and the family finally got back to Kabul, her husband was killed.
Nato and its allies will order "substantially more forces" into battle in
Afghanistan over the next few weeks, the alliance's secretary general said today.
Speaking in Edinburgh at a Nato parliamentary assembly meeting, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, said: "In a few weeks, I expect we will decide, in Nato, on the approach, and troop levels needed, to take our mission forward."
Two leaked classified cables from the US Ambassador in Kabul voicing grave concern about sending more American troops to Afghanistan have exposed open conflict inside President Obama’s national security team over his war strategy.
The contents of the cables, passed to The Washington Post and The New York Times yesterday by three officials, also highlighted growing uncertainty inside the White House about how to prosecute the war, amid deep concerns over the corruption of Hamid Karzai’s Government.
WASHINGTON - President Barack Obama does not plan to accept any of the Afghanistan war options presented by his national security team, pushing instead for revisions to clarify how and when U.S. troops would turn over responsibility to the Afghan government, a senior administration official said Wednesday.
That stance comes in the midst of forceful reservations about a possible troop buildup from the U.S. ambassador in Afghanistan, Karl Eikenberry, according to a second top administration official.
David Brooks' column today
perfectly illustrates what lies at the core of our political
discourse: namely, self-loving tribalistic blindness laced with a
pathological refusal to accept responsibility for one's actions.
Brooks claims there is a unique evil that one finds in the "fringes of
the Muslim world":
In recent weeks, President Obama has been contemplating the future of
U.S. military operations in Afghanistan. He has also been touting the effects
of his policies at home, reporting that this year's Recovery Act not
only saved jobs, but also was "the largest investment in infrastructure
since [President Dwight] Eisenhower built the Interstate Highway System
in the 1950s." At the same time, another much less publicized
U.S.-taxpayer-funded infrastructure boom has been underway. This one in
Afghanistan.
LASHKAR GAH, Afghanistan - Angry Afghan villagers
protested Thursday against what they said was the killing of 11
civilians by foreign troops, but local authorities said only fighters
were killed.
The NATO-led force said it had fired a rocket from the ground at a
group it believed to be planting a roadside bomb in Babaji in Helmand
province. It said it was not aware of any civilians in the area and was
investigating the incident.
As civilised people across
the world breathed a sigh of relief to see the back of former US
president George W. Bush, top American intellectual Noam Chomsky warned
against assuming or expecting significant changes in the basis of
Washington's foreign policy under President Barack Obama.
During two lectures
organised by the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) in
London, Chomsky cited numerous examples of the driving doctrines behind
US foreign policy since the end of World War II.
The Iraq war's chief New York Times cheerleader has reversed field on Afghanistan. Does it mean there will be no escalation?
In early 1968, after the devastating Tet Offense, CBS News anchor Walter Cronkite pronounced the Vietnam War unwinnable. Lyndon Johnson knew he had "lost middle America" and soon declined to run for a second term. The war dragged on for seven more hellish years. But the hearts and minds of the American public had been lost.
British
Army Lance Corporal Joe Glenton faces court martial for refusing to
return to Afghanistan. He defied a direct order by his commanding
officer to not participate in the in the Saturday, October 24, 2009, Stop the War march in London.
