Text Fwd: [Malalai Joya] Any hope I had in the ballot box bringing change in Afghanistan is gone [마랄라이 조야] 아프간 투표 함에 걸었던 변화에 대한 기대가 무너지다

* Informed from Joanne Landy, Campaigns for Peace And Democracy, Nov. 5, 2010

The Guardian(Great Britain)
Any hope I had in the ballot box bringing change in Afghanistan is gone
by Malalai Joya (* former Afghan parliamentarian)
Nov. 2, 2010

One year ago Hamid Karzai was declared re-elected as president of Afghanistan, ending an election that had no legitimacy in the eyes of ordinary Afghans. The presidential election last year was a fraud, with ballot stuffing, vote buying and massive corruption reported by the world's media. Even if the independent election commission had not cancelled the planned run-off between Karzai and his main challenger, Abdullah Abdullah, it would have represented only a choice of the "same donkey with a new saddle". People had no incentive to participate as they knew that both main candidates would bring nothing positive for Afghan people.

Karzai had lost his popularity way before the 2009 election. This was due to the ever increasing corruption of the government, the never-ending crimes of the many fundamentalists and warlords in his regime, and the financial scandals and corruption of his brothers. In Kandahar people even started calling Ahmed Wali Karzai the "little Bush", after the hated US president.

The vast majority of Afghans have lost all hope in Karzai. For us his words and actions have no value, and that includes his latest "peace negotiations" and other measures. Including killers like Mullah Omar and Gulbuddin Hekmatyar in the government is not about negotiating for peace, but completing the decades-old circle of warlordism and fundamentalism.

It's important to say that these so-called elections haven't damaged Afghanistan as much as the US and its Nato allies have, with their bombing and occupation. Wikileaks has exposed some of the truth about the civilian toll of this war against the Afghan and Iraqi peoples. Afghans hold the US and Nato, and their puppet Karzai, responsible for these war crimes. They claim to fight terrorism, but in fact they are the biggest terrorists in the eyes of our people because of their crimes and brutalities.

Unfortunately the Afghan people are not yet strong enough to drive out the US, overthrow the mafia government of Karzai and bring an end to the crimes of the Taliban and other fundamentalists. Our history proves that this resistance to occupation will continue until we have won our freedom. Until both the US and the fundamentalists of both the Northern Alliance and Taliban brands are driven out of power in Afghanistan, we cannot see a bright future. It is now more than five years since I was elected to the Afghan parliament. My experience of this "democratic process" was to see my microphone cut off, and to be threatened with death by other MPs many of whom teamed up to remove me illegally from my seat. My case alone is enough to prove that women's rights in Afghanistan have not truly been safeguarded; our situation was just invoked to justify the war.

In fact, it's important to remember another document that Wikileaks exposed earlier this year: a CIA paper assessing western public opinion on the war that recommended using "testimonials by Afghan women" expressing fear about a Taliban takeover in the event of Nato pulling out. A Time cover story featuring the disfigured Bibi Aisha was a clear example of using the plight of women as war propaganda. The headline "What happens if we leave Afghanistan" could have, or should have, been "What happens while we are in Afghanistan", because crimes of mutilation, rape and murder against women are commonplace today.

Many warlords and commanders aligned with Nato and Karzai carry out their sexist, misogynist crimes with impunity. Time could, for example, have done a cover story condemning the law signed by Karzai in 2009 that legalised crimes against Shia women, or about the shocking levels of women committing suicide by self-immolation.

We had another so-called parliamentary election in September, but I chose not to run. Any hope I had for using the ballot box to achieve change in Afghanistan is gone. Like last year's presidential vote, September's election was full of the buying and selling of votes; one province, Paktika, reported a turnout of 626%. This sort of thing is the reason elections in Afghanistan long ago became a bad joke.

Tomorrow there is an election in the US, and it is now two years since Barack Obama was elected president. His surge of troops has brought only a surge of violence, and his expansion of the war into Pakistan has claimed many innocent lives. Obama promised "hope" and "change", but Afghans have seen only change for the worse. Here he is now seen as a "second Bush".

The only change that can make us hopeful about the future is the strengthening and expansion of a national anti-fundamentalist and democracy-loving movement. Such a movement can be built only by Afghans. And while we want the world's support and solidarity, we neither need nor want Nato's occupying forces.

Text Fwd:[Rick Rozoff] Afghanistan: North Atlantic Military Bloc's Ten-Year War In South Asia

Rick Rozoff

Stop NATO
August 31, 2010
Afghanistan: North Atlantic Military Bloc's Ten-Year War In South Asia
Rick Rozoff


In slightly over a month, on October 7, the U.S.-led war in Afghanistan will enter its tenth year.

The conflict represents the longest continuous combat operations in the history of the United States and Afghanistan alike. With the North Atlantic Treaty Organization for the only time in its existence activating its Article 5 mutual military assistance clause in September 2001 and thus entering the Afghan fray, European nations that had not been at war since the Second World War are now engaged in an endless combat mission.

There are 150,000 foreign troops in Afghanistan, 120,000 of them under the command of NATO's International Security Assistance Force (ISAF). Military personnel from over a quarter of the 192 members of the United Nations.

They include soldiers from almost every European country, several Asia-Pacific states, and nations in the Americas and the Middle East.

NATO has grown from 19 to 28 members since it took control of ISAF in 2003 and has expanded military partnerships with several nations that have deployed troops to Afghanistan, from Australia to Georgia, Montenegro to South Korea, Armenia to the United Arab Emirates.

In the same interim the North Atlantic military bloc has assumed the role of an international, expeditionary, increasingly more multifaceted and politicized armed intervention force, a status that will be formalized this November at its summit in Portugal when its first 21st century Strategic Concept is adopted.

In the middle of August the death count for U.S. and NATO soldiers in Afghanistan passed the 2,000 mark and has grown almost every day since - 2051 by August 31 - with American fatalities accounting for some 60 percent of the total. The U.S. suffered 19 combat deaths in the four days beginning on August 28.

Troops from at least 26 nations serving under NATO's ISAF have been killed in Afghanistan, a record number of countries to sacrifice soldiers in one nation. 521 foreign troops lost their lives in the Afghan war theater last year, a dramatic increase from the preceding year when 295 were killed. So far this year the number is 478, with 2010 poised to be the deadliest year in the nine-year war for U.S. and NATO forces.

The amount of foreign soldiers killed is matched if not exceeded by the number of Afghan civilians slain by NATO.

On August 15 a NATO vehicle hit a motorcycle in southern Afghanistan, killing five civilians including a woman and her three children.

Two days later NATO troops killed a father and son in a raid in Nangarhar province, triggering a protest that blocked the highway from the capital of the province, Jalalabad, to the capital of the country, Kabul.

FOR MORE READING, CLICK ABOVE

Stop NATO
Blog site

Text Fwd: NATO Troops Kill Dozens Of Afghan Protesters, Wound 20

* Image source/ caption: Press TV same as the link
'Violence in Afghanistan caused by US-led troops'

Stop NATO

Press TV
August 26, 2010
US-led troops 'kill Afghan protesters'

US-led troops have reportedly opened fire at demonstrators in northern
Afghanistan, killing dozens of people and wounding more than 20 other civilians.

Thousands of people protested near a NATO base in Badghis province after NATO
forces killed an Afghan police trainee, a Press TV correspondent reported.

The Afghan trainee had fired on foreign troops, killing two Spanish soldiers and
their interpreter.

Afghan media said that the Afghan soldier shot and killed the Spaniards when
they tried to remove an Afghan woman's veil by force.

The protesters also called on the Afghan government to help send Spanish troops
[back] to their country.

More than 800 Spanish soldiers have stationed in Afghanistan within the
framework of NATO forces.

Some 140,000 US-led troops are currently stationed in Afghanistan. A further
10,000 are expected to be deployed to the war-ravaged country in the coming
weeks.

* Also see HERE:

Xinhua News Agency
August 26, 2010
NATO confirms shooting incident leaves 4 dead in Afghanistan
===========================
Stop NATO
Blog site

Video & Text Fwd: Demonstrators hit the streets of Kabul

* Image source: 'AFP – Afghan demonstrators take part in a protest rally in Kabul. Afghans held a rally in the capital Kabul …'
(From the Stop NATO Fwd article: Afghans protest alleged NATO civilian deaths (Aug. 1, 2010)

* Fwd from Stop NATO on Aug. 2, 2010

Yahoo News (UK & Ireland)
Demonstrators hit the streets of Kabul
: More than 400 demonstrators marched toward the presidential palace in Kabul on Sunday to protest against the alleged killing of 52 civilians by a NATO rocket strike in southern Afghanistan.
Aug. 1, 2010

Afghans protest against Nato forces Play video

• 
  
• Demonstrators hit the streets of Kabul Enlarge photo

NATO has repeatedly disputed the allegations of civilian deaths.

German Army Brigadier General Josef Blotz, a Nato spokesman, told reporters on Sunday in Kabul that a joint assessment team has only confirmed that one to three civilians may have been killed in the attack in Helmand province's Sangin district.

Witnesses told the assessment team that six to eight people were killed in the July 23 incident, most of them insurgents, according to Blotz.

Yet the Afghans gathered in downtown Kabul said they were sure the international forces were to blame. Participants in the protest carried photos of children allegedly injured or killed in the strike and shouted "Death to America! Death to Nato!"

The demonstrators did not threaten violence and they were guarded by Afghan police who had shut down the road for the them to hold their march.

Civilian casualties caused by international troops are a major source of friction between Afghan President Hamid Karzai and his international partners, even though the United Nations says the Taliban are responsible for most civilian deaths.

The United Nations says at least 2,412 civilians were killed in 2009 - the deadliest year since the world organisation began systematically collecting casualty data in 2007. The 2009 deaths represented a 14 per cent jump over the previous year, the UN said.

Text Fwd: West's Afghan War: From Conquest To Bloodbath

West's Afghan War: From Conquest To Bloodbath
Rick Rozoff (also at Stop NATO)
January 5, 2010


---------
"When the commander in Kabul asked Obama for the extra troops, he knew the USA would end up with one achievement, and that is more civilian casualties."

"Every time an American soldier gets killed, they bomb an entire village."

"This thing is going to be $5 billion to $10 billion a month and 300 to 500 killed and wounded a month by next summer. That’s what we probably should expect. And that’s light casualties.”
---------


On December 29 the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) released figures demonstrating that Afghan civilian deaths had risen by 10 percent in the first ten months of 2009, from 1,838 during the same period a year earlier to 2,038. The majority of the killings were attributed to insurgent attacks, including those directed against U.S., NATO and government targets, but almost 500 civilians were killed by American and NATO forces.

Matters only grew worse last November and December, culminating in several massacres of Afghan civilians by Western forces at the end of the year.

In early December a NATO air strike killed thirteen civilians in Laghman province. One account also documents a deadly raid by American special forces there. "According to witnesses, US troops entered a number of houses near the provincial capital, Mehtar Lam, in an overnight operation. The victims included Mohammed Ismail, whose 10-year-old son, Rafiullah, described what happened: 'When the soldiers came to our house, my father asked them, "Who are you?" Then they shot him in the head and told us, "Be quiet and tell us where the weapons are."'" [1]

The chairman of the Laghman provincial council presciently commented on the killings that "When the commander in Kabul asked Obama for the extra troops, he knew the USA would end up with one achievement, and that is more civilian casualties." [2]

On the same day that the above-cited UN report was made public an air attack by U.S.-led warplanes killed four Afghans in the northern province of Baghlan. According to one report "A father and his three sons were reportedly among the [fatalities]. The raid also wounded eight others." [3]

A member of parliament from a neighboring province, Haji Farid, said after the aerial onslaught that "Every time an American soldier gets killed, they bomb an entire village." [4]

The following day a NATO missile strike killed seven Afghan civilians in Helmand province. According to the New York Times, "Neither NATO forces nor the Helmand governor’s office gave a definitive number of dead, but reports from local people said that five to seven civilians had been killed, including three children." [5] Later a spokesman for the governor of the province confirmed that seven civilians had been slain and another wounded.

Far more atrocious news broke the same day, December 30, when, according to the next day's edition of The Times of London, "American-led troops were accused...of dragging innocent children from their beds and shooting them during a night raid that left ten people dead" in Kunar province near the Pakistani border. [6]

U.S.-installed and -supported President Hamid Karzai dispatched an investigative team headed by former governor of Helmand province Assadullah Wafa to the scene of the massacre, dubbed by at least one news source as an Afghan My Lai.

A statement was later issued on the official website of the Afghan president that said in part: "The delegation concluded that a unit of international forces descended from a plane Sunday night into Ghazi Khan village in Narang district of the eastern province of Kunar and took ten people from three homes, eight of them school students in grades six, nine and ten, one of them a guest, the rest from the same family, and shot them dead."

The delegation's head, Wafa, added that "US soldiers flew to Kunar from Kabul, suggesting that they were part of a special forces unit," and was quoted as saying "I spoke to the local headmaster. It's impossible they were al-Qaeda. They were children, they were civilians, they were innocent. I condemn this attack." [7]

READ MORE

Text Fwd: Afghan Students, Professors Tell NATO Troops To Leave

* Image source: Bruce Gagnon blog

* Image source: Google
'Map of Kabul c.1880'

StopNATO
Afghan Students, Professors Tell NATO Troops To Leave

Pakistan Observer
Hundreds of Afghans rally against NATO forces

Kabul/Jalalabad—Hundreds of people, mostly students rallied in central Kabul and eastern Nangarhar provinces against the killing of civilians in foreign forces operations.

Four civilians were killed during an operation of NATO forces in Baghlan and eleven, eight of them schoolchildren, were killed in eastern Kunar and 13 others were perished in an overnight air raid of NATO-soldiers in Laghman province.

Activists of youth branch of Jamiat Eslah (Afghan Society for Social Reform and Development) staged a demonstration in Kabul, condemning the airstrikes and demanded withdrawal of the troops.

“If Afghan government did not stop civilian killing, it would lead to national upraising against foreigners,” chief of the youth branch Dr. Syed Khalid Rashid said.

The demonstration was attended by hundreds of youths, including university students and professors of Kabul University. They passed a resolution asking ISAF soldiers to leave Afghanistan.

The resolution urged Afghan government and the law-enforcement agencies to seriously probe the killings and bring the perpetrators to justice.

It also asked the United Nations, human rights watchdogs and international community not to stay silent over the killing and massacre of Afghan civilian.

A similar protest demonstration was carried out in eastern Nangarhar province, bordering Pakistan.

Students of the Nangarhar University who staged the demonstration chanted slogans against foreign soldiers and Afghan government.

The protestors blocked the Sehat-i-Ama Square against traffic for two and a half hours. Speaking on behalf of students, a student leader Safiullah said: “US soldiers have intentionally killed the schoolchildren.” Another student Hanifullah urged Afghan government to order the international troops to leave the country.—NNI


* Related blog

http://nobasestorieskorea.blogspot.com/2009/12/photo-fwd-afghans-protest-natos-killing.html
Wednesday, December 30, 2009
Photo Fwd: Afghans Protest NATO's Killing Of Children, Other Civilians