Category: politics

The United States could do more to acknowledge Pakistan’s political interests in the region given its strong partnership with India. India’s growing influence in Afghanistan is perceived as a threat to Pakistan’s stability and has led to accusations of India supporting insurgents in Balochistan, a conflict-ridden province of Pakistan bordering Afghanistan. A holistic international diplomatic effort that recognises the interlocking nature of conflicts in the region, and includes both high-level principled negotiation and local level reconciliation efforts in its plan to solve them, could pay conflict resolution dividends. Full article.

At least 24 people have been killed and more than 100 injured in a car bombing in the north-western Pakistani town of Charsadda, police say.

The blast occurred as shoppers thronged the main market in Charsadda, which lies north-east of Peshawar.

The attack is the third in as many days in North West Frontier Province.

More than 300 people have been killed in a wave of attacks as Pakistani troops launched an assault against the Taliban in South Waziristan. Full article.

Across the United States, thousands of people, including U.S. citizens, immigrants and asylum seekers, languish needlessly in detention facilities every day without even the right to a hearing to determine whether their detention is necessary. While detained, they are often held in poor conditions with limited access to family, medical care, or attorneys. Full article.

Hersh also quotes Rahimullah Yusufzai, the most knowledgeable and astute analyst of frontier politics:

The turmoil did not end with the Army’s invasion. “Most of the people who were in the refugee camps told us that the Army was equally bad. There was so much killing,” Yusufzai said. The government had placed limits on …reporters who tried to enter the Swat Valley during the attack, but afterward Yusufzai and his colleagues were able to interview officers. “They told us they hated what they were doing—‘We were trained to fight Indians.’ ” But that changed when they sustained heavy losses, especially of junior officers. “They were killing everybody after their colleagues were killed—just like the Americans with their Predator missiles,” Yusufzai said. “What the Army did not understand, and what the Americans don’t understand, is that by demolishing the house of a suspected Taliban or their supporters you are making an enemy of the whole family.” Full article.

so obama commits another 40,000 troops to afghanistan – one of the poorest countries in the world. why? coz it’s the “good” war? american veterans who have fought america’s wars in iraq and afghanistan beg to differ. they frequently call these wars imperialistic, racist, genocidal. many of them can’t even talk about what they’ve seen. to some suicide is the only way out. listen to their testimonies. watch the video.

Veterans reveal the truth about Iraq and Afghanistan in a six-part web series by David Zeiger, Director of Sir! No Sir!, and Bestor Cram & Mike Majoros, Directors of Unfinished Symphony. “There are no more authoritative voices to speak out about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan than the people who have been there under fire,” declares singer Tom Morello (The Nightwatchman, Rage Against the Machine), as he leads an intense celebration of three days of intense, painful, and liberating testimony. And while James Gilligan reveals the deep similarities between the “bad war” (Iraq) and the “good war” (Afghanistan), Jon Turner declares for all, “I am sorry for the things that I did, I am no longer the monster that I once was.”

No Longer a Monster revised 10/14 from Displaced Films on Vimeo.

i’ve explained this context to people ad nauseum. can’t believe i’m hearing it from clinton. she must have been on the campaign trail at that time…

the american public doesn’t want war but who cares… let’s go for a troop surge anyway!

Washington – President Barack Obama is nearing a decision to send more than 30,000 additional U.S. troops to Afghanistan next year, but he may not announce it until after he consults with key allies and completes a trip to Asia later this month, administration and military officials have told McClatchy. Full article.

Protest the Drones at Hancock Field:

* Sunday, November 15, from 1:30 – 2:15 pm

* Hancock Air National Guard Base Entrance (park on Moore or Falso, off of E. Molloy Rd)

Join Kathy Kelly and others in a picket at the Air Base entrance, where the drones are stationed. Bring your own sign or use one of ours. And come earlier to ArtRage Gallery (505 Hawley, Syracuse) for:

* Soup at noon (if you’re coming for soup, please let us know)

* Brief talks at 12:45

* Carpooling to base at 1

Kathy Kelly in on a tour of upstate New York to bring attention to the effects of drone attacks. She is especially interested to be in Syracuse, home of the Hancock Air National Guard Base, where drones are stationed. She will share her eyewitness report on the impacts of war in both Gaza and Pakistan, including the effects of drone attacks. She co-coordinates Voices for Creative Nonviolence, a campaign to end U.S. military and economic warfare, and co-founded Voices in the Wilderness, a group which had openly defied economic sanctions from 1996-2003 by bringing medicines to children and families in Iraq.

More Information: Both events are sponsored by the Syracuse Peace Council. Contact Carol at 472-5478, spc@peacecouncil.net or visit www.peacecouncil.net.

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The Drone Programs are Coming to Syracuse

by John D. Brulé

Soon now Syracuse, New York will become an active participant in the everlasting war in Afghanistan. The government has decided to operate Drones out of the 174th Air National Guard base here and some of the local politicians are thrilled that people here in Syracuse will be able to fire missiles and drop bombs in a land thousands of miles away. It’s a matter of jobs. The planes flown by the 174th are F-16’s and they are to be decommissioned. By introducing the drone programs to Syracuse there will be new jobs to replace the current ones.

As we understand it, the current plan includes the provision to provide housing and maintenance for some Drones here at Hancock field. Then the Drones will be flown through civilian airspace to a military airbase in Watertown, NY on a daily basis. The drones flown to Watertown will be controlled from Syracuse and will supply training for operators and pilots.

However, that is only part of the plan. The overall plan includes operating Drones in the war zone and controlling them from the base here in Syracuse. These Drones will be based close to the war zone and personnel near those bases will take the Drones through the take-off and landing phases of flight. Once they are airborne the Syracuse personnel will control them and implement the decisions about where to fly and when to fire weapons and what to shoot at.

Two people here in Syracuse will be involved with each Drone in the war zone. One person will handle the mechanics of flight and the other will process the information being gathered by onboard cameras and other sensors. Of course one can also expect that various other personnel, both CIA and military, will be involved in the decision making process of when, where and who to fire at.

So we join the 21st century of automated warfare. Now the pliers of the weapons of war will be able to have dinner with their families after their grizzly daytime task.

Dr. Ebadi suggests that “The most important event that has [recently] occurred in Iran is that women have been able to interpret Islam correctly in order to assert their rights.” Their effectiveness in achieving this objective by using only the tools of law and nonviolent action have emboldened women’s movements elsewh…ere in the Islamic world, from Afghanistan to Indonesia. The campaign is clear that its demands are not in opposition to Islam, but rather, form an attempt to force the regime to close the gap between the Islamic ideal and reality. Full article.

The Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) wanted parliament’s approval for several controversial constitutional amendments made by Mr Musharraf. These included the highly unpopular National Reconciliation Ordinance (NRO) granting blanket amnesty to politicians charged with corruption. Our correspondent says the PPP’s plans were postponed after an outcry from within the ruling coalition and opposition parties. They called the NRO a “legitimisation of corruption”. Full article.

While soldiers returning home are routinely involved in shootings, suicide and other forms of self-destructive violent behavior as a direct result of their experiences in Iraq, we have yet to see an event of this magnitude take place in Iraq. Full article.

With the inducement of aid dollars, Pakistan with its poorly equipped army is trying to achieve what the US and Nato have failed to accomplish in Afghanistan. But the longer the military operations continue the more regions are likely to slip from under its control as the numbers of the aggrieved multiply, the military stretches thin and vulnerabilities increase. Already the insurgency has spread to parts of Punjab. Yet a form of military metaphysics prevails among the Pakistani elite and western commentators, who continue to hope that militancy can be bombed out of existence. Anti-war voices are denounced as Taliban sympathisers. Full article.