South Asia

(Tomdispatch.com) – Patches, pins, medals, and badges are the visible signs of an exclusive military culture, a silent language by which soldiers and officers judge each other’s experiences, accomplishments, and general worth. In July 2001, when I first walked through the gate of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point at the ripe young age […]

Afghanistan

Afghanistan: CIA-Backed Forces Commit Atrocities: HRW

Human Rights Watch

Disband All Irregular Paramilitary Forces, Cooperate With Independent Investigations

Coal

Dig Beneath the World’s Far-Right Governments — You’ll Find Fossil Fuels

Basav Sen

(Foreign Policy in Focus) – From Brazil to India to the United States, extractive industries have aligned themselves with authoritarian governments waging war on minority populations. The world’s burgeoning far-right movements are far-flung and diverse, but in government they share a few core tendencies: They attack minority populations. They criminalize dissent. And they’re horrible for […]

Afghanistan

From Baghdad to Kabul: One Officer’s Journey from True Believer in our Forever Wars to Dissident Veteran

Danny Sjursen

( Tomdispatch.com) – Recently, on a beautiful Kansas Saturday, I fell asleep early, exhausted by the excitement and ultimate disappointment of the Army football team’s double overtime loss to highly favored Michigan. Having turned against America’s forever wars and the U.S. military as an institution while I was still in it, West Point football, I’m […]

Afghanistan

The Imperial Debris of War: Why Ending the Afghan War Won’t End the Killing

Stephanie Savell

(Tomdispatch.com ) – I’ve never been to Afghanistan, but I am the mother of two young children. So when I imagine what life must be like there after 18 years of war, my mind conjures up the children most vividly — the ones who have been affected by the conflict — and their parents. I […]

Climate Crisis

Pakistani Students, Activists are marching to combat Climate Crisis: “Can’t be Ignored”

contributors

By Atika Rehman | (The Third Pole) | – As students and climate activists get ready to march for the climate in Pakistan, Atika Rehman finds out why Pakistanis find it impossible to ignore climate change impacts any longer University students in Karachi [image courtesy: FridaysForFuture Pakistan] Does the Pakistani public care about the climate […]

Afghanistan

Why did Trump’s Negotiations with the Taliban Fail?

contributors

By Hizbullah Khan | – (Informed Comment) – US President Donald Trump has decided to cancel a secret meeting at Camp David with the Taliban and called the peace talks “dead” immediately after the consensus had made on a draft deal. The Taliban has mounted violence as Trump announced the withdrawal of US troops from […]

Afghanistan

Reflections on “Peace” in Afghanistan; Leaving a Misguided War and Choosing Not to Look Back

Andrew J. Bacevich

( Tomdispatch.com) – When the conflict that the Vietnamese refer to as the American War ended in April 1975, I was a U.S. Army captain attending a course at Fort Knox, Kentucky. In those days, the student body at any of our Army’s myriad schools typically included officers from the Army of the Republic of […]

Afghanistan

Trump-Taliban Talks like those with N. Korea– a Photo Op on the Deck of the Titanic

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The Afghanistan government has been miffed and apprehensive for some time that the Trump administration has been talking to the Taliban in Qatar without any representation from Kabul. Government officials were therefore happy about Trump’s abrupt cancellation of what he depicted as a summit with the Taliban at Camp David […]