Tag: Kabul

- Afghanistan is an ideal springboard and battleground for the spread of Saudi Sunni Wahhabism and Iranian Shiite fundamentalism throughout Central Asia

I am grateful that the U.S. officials at the U.S. Embassy in Singapore considered my visa re-application in the light of the surprising write-in campaign on my behalf, and have kindly granted me a U.S. visit visa.

I have been working with Sarah Gillespie for the last five years. Sarah is an incredible singer songwriter, a very unique combination of poetic power coupled with natural compositional skills.

For more than a thousand years the Afghan nation, and Pashtun tribes in particular, have resisted all foreign efforts of domination.

Taliban and "peace mission" -- these words do not fit together in the minds of Afghans who know the Taliban's history.

Former Afghan president Borhan el-Deen Rabani was killed Tuesday after an attack targeted his house in Kabul, Afghan officials said.

It seems, by all appearances, that this quartet is attempting to make strides towards an effort to introduce a model initiative initially engineered by Pakistan’s craving for a prime leadership status in Afghanistan’s forth coming endgame.

It is typical to scoff at David Miliband’s position for his post-political career. But in a recent New York Times article the former U.K Foreign Secretary showed that his intellect and judgment on a number of key issues, including how to bring the Afghan War to an end, was and remains almost finely honed; but it lacks an indigenous solution to be airborne:

Kabul-Throughout Afghanistan people are gathering to celebrate the Afghan new year, Nauroz. It is a chance for Afghans to celebrate the rebirth of nature after the long winter. In Kabul, today thousands of gathered in the cemetery and spent the day picnicking. Before heading home to share a meal that included seven items to symbolize their hope for the coming year: wheat for rebirth, a sweet pudding for affluence, garlic for health, apples for beauty, berries representing the sunrise, vinegar for patience, coins for prosperity. After 13 days the wheat will be collected and tossed into flowing water, by which time it will have collected the family’s bad luck for the year.

Last week, General Petraeus testified before Congress that the war in Afghanistan is making progress. While Petraeus may believe his comments, the situation on the ground contradicts his statements. Afghanistan is a country that is overwhelmed by decades of war filled with foreign military forces, armed opposition groups, and a struggling government. Since 2001, there is general consensus that American led ISAF has not resulted in progress for Afghanistan.

Kabul -- Before coming to Afghanistan, I spent a week with students and teachers from a Colorado College nonviolence class who invited me to join them for their retreat near Crestone, Colorado, in an area of the Rocky Mountains described as one of the ten most peaceful places on earth. Coyotes, woodpeckers, and songbirds were easily audible. We reveled in the quiet beauty of an area that is home to 23 spiritual groups, all of whom prize the valley they share as a sacred space.

The Viceroy of India, Lord Curzon, at the beginning of the 20th century aptly described Afghanistan as “a piece on the chessboard on which is being played out the game for domination of the world.”

In aftermath of Taliban regime in 2001 Afghanistan’s capital ‘Kabul’ gradually becomes a city of foreign intercourse, and also a city of military decisions. The phrases like, the fall of Taliban, new Afghan friends and western allies were the topic of media and statesmen. Apparently, they were speaking the end of war, but behind the doors Kabul was a place for remapping military surges.

Pink Floyd's Roger Waters speaks about his passionate campaign for the rights of the Palestinian people and why, more than 30 years after he wrote the globally-acclaimed album 'The Wall', he is focusing on another wall - the Israeli separation barrier in the West Bank:

AFGHANISTAN:  RUSSIAN ROULETTE RETURNS By Khalil Nouri STAFF WRITER / EDITOR Afghan President Hamid Karzai’s recent trip to Moscow marks an unprecedented state level...

By Khalil Nouri Staff Writter / Editor As C.S. Lewis says, “We all want progress, but if you’re on the wrong road, progress means...

This winter, Iran, a major fuel supplier for Afghanistan, plans to use this position to pressure Kabul into backing their policies.

By Khalil Nouri Staff Writer / Editor There has recently been a call for the establishment of an Afghanistan-Pakistan Study Group (APSG) that will be...

THE AFTERMATH OF AFGHANIFEST By Colonel Eugene Khrushchev STAFF WRITER/Editor The latest international conference in Kabul didn’t have any suspense or surprise, but it came up...

By Lieutenant General Hamid Gul History is about to take a monumental turn in the rugged, desolate hills and dales of Afghanistan where the world's sole...

By Khalil Nouri STAFF WRITER / EDITOR Observers were split over the insubordination and mocking comments by General McChrystal and his staff towards the Vice...

By Khalil Nouri STAFF WRITER / EDITOR It is obvious that there is no military solution to the struggle in Afghanistan; therefore a political solution...

By Khalil Nouri STAFF WRITER / EDITOR What some Afghan natives and analysts call the most dangerous part of the world has reached a...

By Khalil Nouri STAFF WRITER / EDITOR It’s ludicrous that in a matter of weeks Mr. Karzai has gone from being a frail, faltering,...

By Khalil Nouri Staff Writer--Editor The United States is on a trajectory to lose the war in Afghanistan because its foreign policy has become entangled...

By Khalil Nouri Staff Writer / Editor Op-Ed Mr. Khalilzad! I don’t get it! Why should anyone on earth page you? Except for Kathleen Parker, a...

By Khalil Nouri Staff Writer / Editor Op-Ed Views in this article are mostly my own, few have been in conjunction with...

By Khalil Nouri STAFF WRITER / EDITOR Afghanistan is to convene a grand tribal convention for a consensus with the Taliban—ones who can peel away...

By Khalil Nouri STAFF WRITER During the last few days, President Karzai has thrown the “kitchen sink” at his allies, and his own people. ...

After initially denying involvement or any cover-up in the deaths of three Afghan women during a badly bungled American Special Operations assault in February, the American-led military command in Kabul admitted late on Sunday that its forces had, in fact, killed the women during the nighttime raid.

By Khalil Nouri STAFF WRITER/EDITOR VETERANS TODAY “All a man can betray is his conscience,” says Joseph Conrad, and there is...

KARZAI'S ATTEMPTS TO PLAY US, INDIA, PAKISTAN AND RUSSIA AGAINST EACH OTHER A CHILDISH ATTEMPT AT REVIVAL OF "COLD WAR THINKING" By Gordon Duff STAFF...

KABUL, Afghanistan — The effort to win over Afghans on former Taliban turf in Marja has put American and NATO commanders in the unusual position of arguing against opium [MarinesOpiumNYT] eradication, pitting them against some Afghan officials who are pushing to destroy the harvest.

Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, the top American commander in Afghanistan, has brought most American Special Operations forces under his direct control for the first time, out of concern over continued civilian casualties and disorganization among units in the field.

An open diplomatic row with Israel during the visit of Vice President Biden has shined a spotlight on the U.S. failure to rein in Israeli settlement ambitions and deepened Palestinian suspicions the US is too weak to broker a deal, AP reports. The Palestinians largely lost faith in the U.S. as a broker after Obama tried - and failed - to get the Netanyahu government to stop building on lands Palestinians claim for a future state, AP says.

Individuals in the upper level of the Pentagon and media polloi are beginning to commit a cardinal sin. They’re blurting the truth – sort of. Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the military’s senior spin surgeon (his father was a Hollywood publicity agent), says that "Afghans are in the lead" of the Marjah offensive. But not everybody involved in writing the narrative is willing to tell a lie that big.

CORRUPTION AND MILITARY GAME PLAYING CLOUD WAR OBJECTIVES By Gordon Duff STAFF WRITER/Senior Editor www.veteranstoday.com March 3, 2010 Sandwiched in a region of gas, oil, copper and coal...

Douglas Valentine at Consortium News draws some parallels between our current wars and William the Conqueror, they're not pretty. The bumpkin senator from Oklahoma has started an inquisition of climate scientists; their crimes? Being climate scientists, of course. The Taliban strike in downtown Kabul in a story from Juan Cole at Informed Comment and according to McClatchy News their goal is driving America out. Those stories and more in today's picks.

By: Khalil Nouri STAFF WRITER FOR VETERANS TODAY AN INEVITABLE KARZAI DYNASTY RULING ...

BY KHALIL NOURI STAFF WRITER FOR VETERANS TODAY “We’ve got a government in a box, ready to roll in.” said triumphantly General Stanley McChrystal as...

In the past few years Pashtun villagers in Afghanistan's rugged heartland have begun to lose faith in the American project. Many of them can point to the precise moment of this transformation, and it usually took place in the dead of night, when most of the country was fast asleep. In its attempt to stamp out the growing Taliban insurgency and Al Qaeda, the US military has been arresting suspects and sending them to one of a number of secret detention areas on military bases, often on the slightest suspicion and without the knowledge of their families.

Day by day a growing chorus of voices is heard saying that the tribes are the solution in Afghanistan. This very powerful grassroots movement is blossoming; and it can give the Afghan people new hope, self-esteem and a sense of belonging. As Representative Dana Rohrabacher (R-Calif.) told the news media Russia Today; "For about one billion dollars we could…(obtain)... the good will of all the tribal leaders and all the ethnic leaders in Afghanistan, and for another billion dollars, we could put nice projects in local villages." But, to make sure that there is success to this notion, an effective bottom-up approach tool is required to match the existing top-down approach so that jointly both approaches can rescue the nation.