"Time" exploits victim to promote Afghan war

The August edition of Time magazine published a shocking cover picture of a young Afghan woman who had her ears and nose cut off, accompanied by the title : ‘What Happens if We Leave Afghanistan’.

The story, Afghan Women and the Return of the Taliban, begins :

The Taliban pounded on the door just before midnight, demanding that Aisha, 18, be punished for running away from her husband's house. They dragged her to a mountain clearing near her village in the southern Afghan province of Uruzgan, ignoring her protests that her in-laws had been abusive ... Her judge, a local Taliban commander, was unmoved.

And then her husband sliced off her ears and nose.

A hand-wringing note from Time's managing editor explains "how Afghan women have embraced the freedoms that have come from the defeat of the Taliban — and how they fear a Taliban revival." Excerpted :

"I thought long and hard about whether to put this image on the cover of TIME

I'm acutely aware that this image will be seen by children, who will undoubtedly find it distressing. We have consulted with a number of child psychologists about its potential impact ...

"I would rather confront readers with the Taliban's treatment of women than ignore it. I would rather people know that reality as they make up their minds about what the U.S. and its allies should do in Afghanistan.

The much publicized release of classified documents by WikiLeaks has already ratcheted up the debate about the war. ... What you see in these pictures and our story is something that you cannot find in those 91,000 documents: a combination of emotional truth and insight into the way life is lived in that difficult land and the consequences of the important decisions that lie ahead."

About that "emotional truth" in "our story"...

Here's an article from RAWA, which has been fighting the Taliban a lot longer than Time magazine :

"Time" exploits victim to promote war

"In return for allowing Time to publish her photo, Aisha was flown to the US for reconstructive surgery. However, although Time ensured her mutilated face was seen worldwide, they appear less keen for her voice to be heard.

"I heard Aisha's story from her a few weeks before the image of her face was displayed all over the world", Ann Jones, author of Kabul in Winter, wrote in the August 12 Nation. "She told me that her father-in-law caught up with her after she ran away, and took a knife to her on his own; village elders later approved, but the Taliban didn't figure at all in this account."

The Time story, however, attributes Aisha's mutilation to a husband under orders of a Talib commander, thereby transforming a personal story, similar to those of countless women in Afghanistan today, into a portent of things to come for all women if the Taliban return to power ...

Afghan feminist Malalai Joya : "During the Taliban’s regime such atrocities weren’t as rife as it is now and the graph is hiking each day."

The article at RAWA cites a March 11, 2010 CIA document on spinning the war, published by WikiLeaks : CIA Red Cell

"Afghan women could serve as ideal messengers in humanizing the ISAF role in combating the Taliban because of women’s ability to speak personally and credibly about their experiences under the Taliban, their aspirations for the future, and their fears of a Taliban victory. Outreach initiatives that create media opportunities for Afghan women to share their stories with French, German, and other European women could help to overcome pervasive skepticism among women in Western Europe toward the ISAF mission.

Media events that feature testimonials by Afghan women would probably be most effective if broadcast on programs that have large and disproportionately female audiences.

"Emotional truth".

h/t Rabble.

Shooting the messenger ... blood on their hands

CNN : WikiLeaks founder may have 'blood' on his hands
Reuters : WikiLeaks may have blood on its hands, U.S. says
Both sources quote Admiral Mike Mullen :

"Mr. Assange can say whatever he likes about the greater good he thinks he and his source are doing," Mullen said. "But the truth is they might already have on their hands the blood of some young soldier or that of an Afghan family."

Guardian : The War Logs :

"...the marines opening fire with automatic weapons as they tore down a six-mile stretch of highway, hitting almost anyone in their way – teenage girls in fields, motorists in their cars, old men as they walked along the road. Nineteen unarmed civilians were killed and 50 wounded."

Two hours later they returned to confiscate camera evidence.
A news photographer said they told him : "Delete them, or we will delete you."
A US army colonel paid $2,000 to the families of each victim and Major General Francis Kearney ordered the marines to pull the entire 120-man company out of the country.

Washington Post reader Q&A with Assange :

"Did you take steps to delete the names and other identifying information of informants before you released the 90,000+ documents? If not, how do you answer the charge that your actions may get these informants killed?"

Assange :

"We released 36,000 out of the 92,000 or so documents in the Afghan War Diaries.
15,000 have been held for further review because they may contain information about innocents or informants. We also asked the White House to provide resources to help us vet the materials; the White House did not respond."

Yesterday Obama signed the new Afganistan troop surge bill, passed by both Democrats and Republicans.

Last month, after accusing Stephen Harper of making a decision to “cut and run” from Afghanistan, Michael Ignatieff called for Canadians to stay in Afghanistan after 2011 as police and army trainers.

Harper and Iggy both supported the invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq, and both voted to extend the Afghanistan occupation from 2009 to 2011.
Former human rights advocate Ignatieff is providing Harper and Obama with the cover necessary to support and extend that occupation.

It's down to all of us now to blow that cover : Rethink Afghanistan

Julian Assange on "the real story" of the Afghan war logs

Julian Assange on "the real story" of Wikileaks release of 91,000 classified Afghan war documents from 2004 to 2009 to The New York Times, The Guardian, and Der Spiegel.

"This is the story of the war since 2004. Like most of the accidents on the road are the result of cars not of buses, most of the deaths in this war are the result of the every day squalor of war not the big incidences."

Among other disclosures : the US gives Pakistan $1-billion a year to help fight the "insurgency" in Afghanistan but these reports indicate that the Pakistani spy service ISI, which works in concert with the CIA, is guiding the attacks on US/NATO/Afghan troops.

The Real News Network, who you should all be sending money to, has a very good interview up with Assange on the significance of these leaks and how they were obtained.

Ch 4 : There's been publicity about Bradley Manning, a military officer, who claims to be a source for Wikileaks. What can you say about him?

JA : We have a number of military sources, including ones before Manning joined the army.

Ch 4: Do you know who the source is?

JA : No, we don't know who the source is.

Ch. 4 : So how does Wikileaks work?

JA : Other journalists try to verify sources. We don't do that, we verify documents. We don't care where it came from - but we can guess that it probably came from somewhere in the US military or the US government, from someone who is disaffected. Clearly, a heroic act by the whistleblower.

CH. 4 : So the same computer system that protects the source also stops you from knowing that source?

JA : The system we have deployed to make whistleblowers to us untraceable, also prevents us knowing who they are.

Taliban Larry

NaPo : Vindication for Taliban Jack (h/t : Boris)

"So now it’s time to talk to the Taliban.

Canada’s Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon told reporters on Tuesday that the Taliban has an important role to play in laying the foundations of a new Afghanistan. “We encourage a reconciliation process that is inclusive of all Afghans, no matter their ethnicity,” he said.

Now cup your hand to your ear and listen for the caterwauling of the uber patriots here on the home front decrying the minister’s capitulation to the enemy. Hmm. Oddly quiet. Could this minster really represent the government that so cravenly branded NDP leader Jack Layton “Taliban Jack” four years ago for suggesting exactly the same thing?

“Is it next going to be tea with Osama Bin Laden?” asked Peter MacKay.

A Globe and Mail columnist [Christie Blatchford] indignantly wrote “Would he pull out the chairs for their representatives? Would he pour tea for those who have killed 23 Canadian soldiers this year?

So almost four years after Layton suggested talking with the Taliban the minister acknowledges this is now official policy. For a guy who was labeled a soldier-hater and a Taliban-lover Jack Layton is remarkably gracious about the turnaround. I asked him recently if he was planning to ask for an apology and he demurred. “As long as the right thing gets done I don’t really care”.

Cannon has actually been making quiet noises about Taliban "reconciliation and re-integration" since January : Canada considering Karzai plan to offer cash to Taliban: Cannon

From John Manley's Independent Panel on Canada's Future Role in Afghanistan , commissioned in 2007 :

"When asked whether President Karzai should enter into negotiations with the Taliban and allow them to participate in the political process, some 60% of Afghans currently believe a negotiated settlement should be pursued."

About the same margin of Canadians, including Conservatives, also favoured negotiation back in May 2007 : CTV : Canadians support talks with Taliban: poll

"Canadians still think it's a good idea to negotiate with Afghanistan's Taliban insurgents as a way to end the violence there, a poll finds.
In The Strategic Counsel poll conducted for CTV and The Globe and Mail, there was almost two-to-one support for the notion:
Net good idea : 63 per cent
Net bad idea : 32 per cent
Donolo said 57 per cent of Conservative Party members supported the idea of negotiations."

Airshow Pete, "Goldie" Hawn, and World Stage Steve will eventually have to find a whole new place to play dress-up .

Racketeering - Funding both sides of the war

On a day marking the worst number of casualties NATO has seen in Afghanistan this year, the New York Times adds to recent reports of Afghan security contractors buying off the Taleban the next obvious step - Taleban and Afghan officials cooperating to hold NATO to ransom.

Rule of the Gun :

After a pair of bloody confrontations with Afghan civilians, two of the biggest private security companies — Watan Risk Management and Compass Security — were banned from escorting NATO convoys on the highway between Kabul and Kandahar.

The ban took effect on May 14. At 10:30 a.m. that day, a NATO supply convoy rolling through the area came under attack. An Afghan driver and a soldier were killed, and a truck was overturned and burned. Within two weeks, with more than 1,000 trucks sitting stalled on the highway, the Afghan government granted Watan and Compass permission to resume.

Watan’s president, Rashid Popal, strongly denied any suggestion that his men either colluded with insurgents or orchestrated attacks to emphasize the need for their services. But the episode, and others like it, has raised the suspicions of investigators here and in Washington, who are trying to track the tens of millions in taxpayer dollars paid to private security companies to move supplies to American and other NATO bases.

Although the investigation is not complete, the officials suspect that at least some of these security companies — many of which have ties to top Afghan officials — are using American money to bribe the Taliban. The officials suspect that the security companies may also engage in fake fighting to increase the sense of risk on the roads, and that they may sometimes stage attacks against competitors.

“We’re funding both sides of the war,” a NATO official in Kabul said.

The investigation is complicated by, among other things, the fact that some of the private security companies are owned by relatives of President Hamid Karzai and other senior Afghan officials. Mr. Popal, for instance, is a cousin of Mr. Karzai, and Western officials say that Watan Risk Management’s largest shareholder is Mr. Karzai’s brother Qayum.

The principal goal of the American-led campaign here is to prepare an Afghan state and army to fight the Taliban themselves. The possibility of collusion between the Taliban and Afghan officials suggests that, rather than fighting each another, the two Afghan sides may often cooperate under the noses of their wealthy benefactors.

We pay off the security contractors who escort our convoys not to bomb them or attack NATO troops; if we don't pay up, we get a little reminder from Karzai's relatives.

Harper's Afghanistan occupation MEPs emphasize building schools and promoting democracy. They don't mention anything about racketeering.

Dave on the flagrant abuse of armed forces : Eyes shut and fingers crossed.

Is the Far Right in the USA supporting the Taliban?

That is the question.

There is history, ideology and strategy, and now there is opportunity that makes you wonder what the hell is happening in Afghanistan.

Fact number 1: In the mid-1980s, a covert operation was set up by individuals in the Reagan administration to sell and supply arms to Iran. Profits from the transactions were used to fund the Contras (anti-socialists) movement in Nicaragua.

Fact number 2: In the late 1980s, Congressman Charlie Wilson, a fiercely anti-Soviet Democrat, became the go-between that far right Republicans needed on the appropriations committee to ensure that Afghan mujahedeen forces would be provided with arms. Hundreds of millions of dollars from taxpayers' money and private sources secretly paid for the US manufactured military weapons supplied to the 'freedom fighters'.

Fact number 3: During the 2008 presidential election, Republicans directed attacks on Obama, stating that he is a socialist. They ran a campaign that fuelled these accusations, fabricating information or playing up aspects of Obama they claimed to be un-American. They still believe these claims.

Fact number 4: Former vice-president Dick Cheney has considerable connections to the US arms industry and to the many private corporations that flourished under the Bush administration and received billion dollar contracts in Iraq to supplement US defense with mercenaries.

Fact number 5: Something has shifted in Afghanistan since Obama was elected president and has re-directed military resources there. The Taliban's mujahedeen forces are stronger and are being supplied with increasingly effective offensive weapons.

Some observers are speculating that Afghanistan may become Obama's Viet Nam. All of this makes me wonder whether politically far right Republicans are secretly funding the Taliban in Afghanistan to undermine the Democrats.

Are Canadian troops and Afghan civilians also being slaughtered in order to advance the political goals of far right US Republicans? There may be more facts and arguments that Dr Dawg's readers would like to present for consideration. Please do.

UPDATE: (August 27) Welcome, NaPo readers! Here's some further reading for those unfamiliar with the way Terry Glavin operates.