No, 'The Longest War' in US History Is Not Over
What the U.S. did to Afghanistan and its people is not a series of mistakes or good intentions gone awry, but crimes. And there's still no end in sight.
Speaking from the White House on August 31, President Joe Biden lied to the people of the U.S. and to the world: "Last night in Kabul, the United States ended 20 years of war in Afghanistan—the longest war in American history." The U.S. war on Afghanistan did not end—it has only adapted to technological advances and morphed into a war that will be more politically sustainable, one more intractable and more easily exportable.
No More Attacks on Afghanistan
On the evening of Thursday, August 26, hours after two suicide bombs were detonated at the gates of Kabul’s Hamid Karzai International Airport killing and wounding scores of Afghans trying to flee their country, U.S. President Joe Biden spoke to the world from the White House, “outraged as well as heartbroken.” Many of us listening to the president’s speech, made before the victims could be counted and the rubble cleared, did not find comfort or hope in his words. Instead, our heartbreak and outrage were only amplified as Joe Biden seized the tragedy to call for more war.
Matthew Hoh: Afghanistan and the End of an Unjust War + Teach Truth Days of Action
Refusefascism | August 30, 2021
Sam Goldman interviews Matthew Hoh, former Marine and State Department official who served in and then was the first to resign over the unjust war in Afghanistan all the way back in 2009.
U.S. Leaves After Helping Destroy Afghanistan
Twenty years after bombing its way into Afghanistan with the promise of ending Taliban rule, running al Qaeda out, and defending women's rights there, the U.S. is scrambling to leave. The Afghan government, a creation of US fantasy, has collapsed; the Taliban is back in power. having accumulated most of the weapons the US littered the country with. Losses to the people of Afghanistan are incalculable, and in no way over.
NO ONE who is paying attention should be at all surprised, even though we remain outraged at the murderous US response to 9/11. The imperialist aims of the U.S. blind its leaders so that they are shocked when they don't prevail.
Act now for the Guantánamo prisoners
closeguantanamo.org | July 9, 2021
Reposted from the Close Guantanamo Now! campaign.
In our latest article, Former Military Commissions Prosecutor Calls for the Closure of Guantánamo, we cross-post, with an introduction by our co-founder Andy Worthington, an op-ed recently published in the Washington Post by Omar Ashmawy, a former prosecutor in Guantánamo’s broken military commission trial system.
Ashmawy was involved in the only two cases that have proceeded to trials (six others ended in plea deals), and the broken nature of the commissions can be gauged from the fact that these trials took place 13 years ago, in 2008, and that even the most recent plea deal took place nine years ago, in 2012.
Emergency Campaign to Free Iran's Political Prisoners
Debra Sweet | July 7, 2021
Ariel Dorfman: We should not let the prisoners down
Publish Emergency Appeal in NY Review of Books
You are needed to help raise $15,000 by July 16
June 6: We’ve raised $1,200 and received a generous match from a signer of the Emergency Appeal. It will double your contributions up to $1,000 and bring us to $3,200! Donate Now!
A brutal campaign of arrests, torture and executions is taking place in Iran. The lives and dignity of hundreds of political prisoners are in imminent, mortal danger. This emergency has only intensified with the election of Ebrahim Raisi.
We must rally to their defense and raise $15,000 by July 16 to publish a full-page color ad of our Emergency Appeal -- The Lives of Iran’s Political Prisoners Hang in the Balance—We Must ACT Now -- on the back cover of the August edition of the prestigious New York Review of Books (NYRB) and advertise our campaign in their online editions.
Death of a war criminal, but not of the war
Debra Sweet | July 1, 2021
Donald Rumsfeld was a cunning unapologetic political/military operative in the US government's global machine of aggressive war-making. His death is no loss to humanity.
But it should cause an evaluation of the role he and his partners in war crimes - members of the Bush regime - played in launching the on-going war of terror on people in the Persian Gulf, Afghanistan/Pakistan and beyond, and of the on-going efforts to stop these crimes.
A known known
Raymond Nat Turner | 2021
“…there are known knowns. There are things
we know that we know. There are known
unknowns—things we do not know we know…”
—an infamous War Criminal
Biden’s Slow Progress on Closing Guantánamo
Andy Worthington | June 17, 2021
An article last week by NBC News — “Biden quietly moves to start closing Guantánamo ahead of 20th anniversary of 9/11” — was widely shared by opponents of the continued existence of the shameful prison at Guantánamo Bay, but frustratingly failed to live up to the promise of its headline.
40 men are still held at Guantánamo, and nine of these men have been approved for release by high-level US government review processes — three in 2010, two in 2016, one in 2020, and three just last month, in decisions taken by the Periodic Review Boards set up under President Obama that show a willingness on the part of the Biden administration to recognize that there is something fundamentally wrong with a system that continues to hold, indefinitely, men who have been held for up to 19 years, and have never been charged with a crime.
June 13: Iranian political prisoners face sham trial - Regime repression sparks global movement for prisoners' freedom
Larry Everest | June 11, 2021
"June 13 is going to be a make-or-break day for my mother, Nahid Taghavi, and other Iranian political prisoners," says Mariam Claren.
"These prisoners—who never should have been arrested in the first place—will be brought before an Iranian court and could face harsh sentencing for the 'crime' of speaking out for basic rights and against injustice," Claren writes in a June 9 oped in Ms. Magazine.
The other political prisoners reportedly being brought to court include Mehran Raouf, Bahareh Soleimani, Nazanin Mohammadnejad, Elham Samimi, and Somayeh Kargar, who is Kurdish.
These and many other Iranians, from women's and human rights activists, to protesters, dissidents and revolutionaries, to members of religious and oppressed minorities, have been targeted by a wave of violent repression and arbitrary arrests. This has been the Islamic Republic's response to the just mass uprisings that rocked Iran in November 2019, and the heroic, ongoing resistance of prisoners and ordinary Iranians.
The outrage that won't go away
Justice-loving people were happy when Obama ordered Guantanamo closed; some were incredulous that he never took the actions he could have to actually close it. Trump, a proponent of torture, and particularly a fan of water-boarding, wanted to expand the US torture camp, and promised to reduce any protections to those held without charge.
Now comes Biden who seems to think Guantanamo is an embarrassment, and has indicated he would like to close it. But he has done even less than Obama did to take the steps needed.
We're sharing here an upcoming World Can't Wait event (please help spread the word to Spanish language speakers) and some recent articles of interest on Guantanamo.
Saturday May 22nd en español - On-line Event: Screening of "The Mauritanian"
with special guest Mohamedou Ould Slahi
7:30 pm EDT / 6:30pm EST (Mexico/Central America) - stay tuned for details on the stream
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