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At 16 years, the war in Afghanistan is the longest war in American history, but it is a largely forgotten war.

There was virtually no mention of Afghanistan during the presidential campaign by either Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump. The war resurfaced in Americas consciousness briefly when U.S. forces dropped the Mother of All Bombs in April on a bunker suspected of harboring ISIS fighters, but Afghanistan quickly vanished in the chaos of news emanating from the Trump White House.

Trumps tantrums, antics and constitutional violations will continue to hold the stage, but amid the swirl and talk of Watergate and impeachment came the news that the president is amenable to the militarys request to send an additional 3,000 to 5,000 American troops to Afghanistan to assist the 8,400 or so already serving there with Afghani forces.

Hundreds of New Hampshire residents, including many National Guard members, have served in Afghanistan. As of today, 15 Granite State residents are listed as having been killed during Operation Enduring Freedom, the code name for the U.S. effort in Afghanistan. Another 72 were wounded in action.

Statistics like that, which are a tiny fraction of overall losses that include innocent Afghanis, give special urgency to the call by Concord resident, West Point graduate and Afghan war veteran Dan Vallone for Congress to debate the nations policy in Afghanistan before additional troops are committed.

Vallone, in a piece that appeared in these pages last week, wants Congress, if it decides further troops are worth putting at risk, to issue a formal Authorization for the Use of Military Force, a step short of a declaration of war.

For years, Congress has ducked its responsibility to determine military and foreign policy, which in a democracy should not be left to its chief executive and military leaders.

Gen. John Nicholson, the chief commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan, calls the current situation a stalemate. That may be optimistic. The Taliban and its jihadist forces have increased the amount of territory they control and the Afghan government, which is led by a president and chief executive from rival parties, remains corrupt and marginally functional. The Afghan army, while much improved, is plagued by desertions and is said to be heavily infiltrated by Taliban members.

Past commitments of additional American troops, including the 26,000 sent in the 2009 surge under President Obama, led to only temporary improvements. Theres little reason to believe that sending one-fifth as many now will be any more successful. Its not for nothing that Afghanistan is called the graveyard of empires. The British failed (three times) to conquer its tribal fighters as did the Soviet Union and, after 16 years of trying, the United States.

If America abandons its efforts in Afghanistan, that country could again become a refuge for extremists intent on attacking the West. But its also possible that continued American presence is creating, in Afghanistan and elsewhere, more terrorists than the war effort is killing.

Is there a step short of abandoning Afghanistan that could help prevent that? A more intense effort to help Afghanistan and its rival leaders learn to cooperate and govern for the good of their people rather than their own and their relatives pockets would help. So would an increased effort to assist the people of that nation, especially its oppressed girls and women.

Any solution will be political, not military.

We urge the members of New Hampshires congressional delegation to read Vallones piece and insist that an Authorization for the Use of Military Force be debated. Otherwise, this nation will continue to blunder along, and more lives and money that could be put to better use will be wasted.

Excerpt from:
Editorial: Reassessing the war in Afghanistan - Concord Monitor

By Samiullah Paiwand | GARDEZ, Afghanistan

GARDEZ, Afghanistan Gunmen stormed a bank in eastern Afghanistan on Saturday and opened fire, killing at least three people and wounding many more before being shot dead by security forces, officials said.

At least three attackers struck the bank in Gardez, the capital of Paktia province, according to the provincial governor's office, and they were all killed at the scene. It said more than 10 people were also wounded in the assault.

An official at the city's hospital said they had received three dead bodies, including two police officers and one bank employee, and had treated 31 wounded people. It was not clear what had happened to the attackers' bodies.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility, and the attackers' motives were not immediately known.

Insurgent groups such as the Taliban and Islamic State often carry out attacks in Afghanistan, including in the past on banks, where police, soldiers, and other government employees routinely collect their paychecks.

On Wednesday, Islamic State claimed responsibility for a suicide attack on an Afghan state television station that killed at least six people as well as the attackers and wounded 24 in the city of Jalalabad.

(Writing by Josh Smith; Editing by Louise Heavens and Helen Popper)

DUBAI Iranians yearning for detente abroad and greater freedoms at home have handed President Hassan Rouhani a second term, but the hardline forces he defeated in elections on Friday will remain defiantly opposed to his plans.

HOMS, Syria/BEIRUT Syrian rebels started leaving the last opposition-held district of Homs city on Saturday in the final phase of an evacuation deal that will bring an early center of the uprising back under government control in the conflict's seventh year.

BEIRUT Islamic State militants killed nearly 20 people including two children in a village in Syria's eastern Deir al-Zor province, and captured fighters participating in a U.S.-backed operation against the jihadists, a monitoring group said on Saturday.

Read more here:
Three killed, dozens wounded as gunmen storm bank in Afghanistan - Reuters

The Afghan vice-president, Abdul Rashid Dostum. Photograph: David Guttenfelder/AP

Afghanistans vice-president has left the country after a six-month standoff following allegations that he illegally detained a political rival and had him raped with an assault rifle.

Abdul Rashid Dostum flew to Turkey on Friday evening reportedly for medical treatment, according to sources in the Afghan government. Dostum is believed to have alcohol problems and claims to suffer from diabetes.

His departure for Turkey makes it unlikely that he will face trial, calling into question more than a decade of western efforts to instil the rule of law in Afghanistan and help build public trust in the government.

The allegations against the vice-president triggered a political crisis that has engulfed Afghanistan since last November when Dostum abducted Ahmad Ishchi, a politician from Dostums home province of Jowzjan, from a stadium in the northern part of the country. Ishchi was held for five days, during which time he says he was severely beaten and raped with the barrel of a rifle by nine of Dostums bodyguards.

Dostum has evaded punishment by taking refuge in his mansion in central Kabul, guarded by armed militiamen. Nobody has been arrested or indicted, despite medical evidence backing up Ishchis claims.

Human rights defenders have called for Dostum and his guards to be prosecuted, but the Afghan government reportedly put him under pressure to leave the country instead. It was unclear who chartered the plane that took him on Friday.

After Ishchis allegations in November, the Afghan president, Ashraf Ghani, framed the case as his make-or-break moment to show that not even powerful warlords were above the law. Ghani told western diplomats he was fed up with Afghan strongmen breaking the law with impunity. Rule of law and accountability begins in the government itself and we are committed to it, his spokesman said publicly.

Donors promised Ghani their support if he took Dostum on. The EU called for an investigation into reports of gross human rights violations. In private, diplomats said the credibility of the Afghan government hinged on bringing Dostum to justice.

Now, some admit, their own credibility is at stake as well. President Ghani climbed up the highest tree, and we climbed with him, one European ambassador said.

Dislodging the Taliban from power was meant to create a safer country for Afghans. Instead, the country now sees strongmen, including top government officials, perpetrate violence and corruption with impunity.

Ishchi, a former governor of the northern Jowzjan province, was kidnapped in November while he was attending a traditional game of buzkashi, a type of polo where horse riders fight over a headless goat carcass.

He said that on his first day in captivity, Dostum and nine security guards beat him before stripping off his trousers. Dostum then attempted to rape him before commanding the bodyguards to sodomise him with a rifle, while a cameraman filmed the abuse.

Make sure he doesnt have any honour left, Ishchi recalled Dostum saying, in a recent interview with the Guardian. He was held for a total of five days.

Bashir Ahmad Tayanj, a spokesman for Dostum, denied all allegations, saying the men had in fact arrested Ishchi for collaborating with the Taliban. However, forensic evidence from medical treatment showed injuries corresponding to Ishchis allegations.

Dostum remained free, in loose house arrest at his mansion. He refused to appear for questioning, and police ignored an arrest order from the attorney general, probably out of fear of unrest from militiamen loyal to Dostum who commands large parts of the countrys 2 million ethnic Uzbeks.

The attorney generals office said it was investigating the case seriously but declined to say whether Dostum was personally under investigation.

To some, the standoff was proof of the reality of Afghan politics: since 2001, some Afghan powerbrokers have simply become too mighty to prosecute. Hussein Hasrat, an activist with the Afghan Civil Society and Human Rights Network, said: They know if they want to investigate properly, it could lead to ethnic divisions, and the conflict could get worse.

The Afghan government and donors are now caught up in the fundamental contradiction of these past 16 years, said Patricia Gossman, Afghanistan researcher with Human Rights Watch. You cant build a state that respects the rule of law while at the same time effectively endorsing impunity and turning a blind eye to rampant abuse.

Dostum is part of a roster of warlords who have never been formally indicted for alleged crimes. Earlier this month, Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, who shelled Kabul ferociously during the civil war, returned to Kabul as part of a peace deal granting him immunity. Last week, the UN committee against torture called for the notorious Kandahar police chief Abdul Raziq to be prosecuted for torture and disappearances. In Afghanistan, few believe that will happen.

A veteran of three decades of conflict, Dostum has a long list of alleged atrocities to his name. In the 1990s, he ran his own mini state in the north where he printed money, drove an armoured Cadillac and indulged in a hedonistic lifestyle with alcohol.

At 63, he is believed to be ill and has regularly travelled to Turkey, a long-time patron, for treatment.

When Ghani included him on his election ticket in 2014, after previously calling him a known killer, he made Dostum apologise to the people who suffered from the violence and civil war in the country.

The former president Hamid Karzai, who also co-opted the Uzbek warlord, faced problems reminiscent of recent events.

In 2008, Dostum, then the army chief of staff, abducted another political rival, Akbar Bay, who had allegedly plotted to assassinate him and whom he allegedly also had raped. After a year-long standoff, Dostum went into exile in Turkey until Karzai called him back to tap into his voter base. According to cables released by WikiLeaks, the US ambassador leaned on the Turks, saying: Arresting him would cause problems.

Additional reporting by Mokhtar Amiri

Go here to read the rest:
Vice-president leaves Afghanistan amid torture and rape claims - The Guardian

The people of few conflicted countries including Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria hardly seem to get out of bloody wars. Syria, which is battling the regime change, would land into the same bloody fate of Afghanistan if it undergoes this transition. In both cases before and after the regime change- the natives of these territories should pay the price of the Wests ambitious and hegemonic conspiracies.

Afghanistans death toll from the US-led war is placed at 100,000 people. This startling figure sparks the speculation that the US and allies were just watching the people dying over this period. The US-based Brown Universitys Costs of War study finds that at least 100,000 civilians have lost their lives to the war between 2001 through 2014.

It added to the injury when the year 2015 ended up with record-high human casualities than any single year since 2001. And then at the end of the following year 2016, United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) described the causalities shocking and unprecedented. The rate is set to go up as the US mulls over sending further reinforcements and F-16 fighters jets that suggest fierce war.

The Brown Universitys finding seems to be authentic, because it is strongly circulated among Afghan war experts that an average of 20 people die a day in Afghanistan that constitute the estimated number when calculated. On the opposite front, the UNAMA reports the Afghan fatalities about one third of the Brown Universitys figure. This UN agencys compilation of war victims is unfounded and impartial and it amounts to complicity or clemency towards war instigators by not disclosing the right statistic or just by sufficing to call on warring sides to heed for civilians life.

The Brown Universitys study concludes that over 370,000 people have died due to direct war violence in Afghanistan, Iraq and Pakistan since 2001. It also revealed that the costly war in terms of life and expenditure didnt result in inclusive, transparent, democratic governments in Afghanistan and Iraq.

According to the Syrian Centre for Policy Research (SCPR), Syrian fatalities caused by war, directly and indirectly, amount to 470,000 people. It states the number is twice the UNs figure of 250,000 victims collected nearly a year ago. The SCPRs report estimates that 11.5% of the countrys population has been killed or injured since the crisis erupted in March 2011.

In Afghanistan, civilians are killed for certain causes, and it is not by accident. Last month, ten Taliban suicide infiltrates killed 170 soldiers in a military headquarter in northern Balkh province [the unofficial figure put dead between 300 and 400 soldiers]. The harrowing and murderous Balkh carnage could serve as a best example behind many civilian and military deaths in Afghanistan. In days after the massacre, the US Secretary of Defense James Mattis arrived in Kabul and informed of a new Washington strategy on the way in a press conference with the top US commander, as a response to the incident.

The carnage apparently became a motive for the likely shift in USs policy that might be deployment of further US troops, more military hardware and demanding additional NATO forces in Afghanistan. In this context, Australia has already said it is open to sending more soldiers after Berlin signaled reservations.

In a single sentence: it was not the carnage that caused the strategy change, but it was, indeed, the strategy change that caused the carnage.

Afterwards, in a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing, the US National Intelligence Chief Daniel Coats spoke of a downhill security in Afghanistan through 2018. He said:

Even if NATO deploys more troops, the political and security situation in Afghanistan will likely get worse.

In spite of being the most powerful military in a recent ranking, the US casts the Taliban unbeatable. The US officials since long predict each coming year dangerous for Afghanistan. But how do they know that?

The other day, the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Joseph Dunford speaking at Saint Michaels College in Vermont also followed the track of James Mattis and Daniel Coats and stressed on sending more troops to Afghanistan. While speaking, he hinted at the latest Afghan Army massacre and raised it as basis to lobby the audience. The US never bothers to deliver a statement repeatedly unless the issue is concerned for it.

These high-ranks back-to-back rhetoric speech comes as the US is vigilant of measurable Russian support of the Taliban fronts in parts of Afghanistan.

In October 2015, the Taliban militants rushed into the unseen mass-killing of civilians on the streets of northern Kunduz city and converted it into a ghost city. The war analysts believed it was the USs intrigue to send shockwaves into the Central Asian countries and importantly Russia.

Following the Kunduz attack, Sen. John McCain appeared to say that:

The Talibans strength has been fueled by the Obama Administrations scheduled troop withdrawal.

He critically directed the Kunduz attacks blame to Obama administrations untimely troop drawdown. He wanted the troops to stay behind and only such a tragedy was feasible to push the troop-pullout plan in reverse.

Even though McCain and others have long sought more troops or continued war on terrorism, Afghanistan loses more inhabitants to the fake war with every year going by.

Even the waves of so-called terrorists attacks in Germany, Holland and France last year underscores that these are the conspiracy theories aimed at continuous war in Syria and elsewhere. Many Europeans would still keep faith with the war-mongers cooked-up stories and back the US and NATOs intervention in Syria. The sole purpose of all these planned attacks was and is to demonize the Islamic State or Al-Qaeda and draw a whole support to wage a filthy war against the nations where these terrorists operate.

Unrest in Afghanistan is a recipe for more US weapons sales to war-exposed countries, viable drug trafficking that generates a profit far beyond measure, unearthing of underground resources worth of several trillion dollars, restraining of the regional military and economic rival powers and so others.

The insurgent groups be it in Afghanistan, Syria or Iraq depending on the nature of war have always chanted their slogans against the military forces or the incumbent governments not civilians. But the wars have instead largely cost the ordinary peoples lives.

In almost every Taliban attack where the NATO and Afghan forces or government officials were targets, quite a few normal people have fallen victim. Typically, in a recent suicide attack on NATO fleet in Kabul, no international servicemen died or injured, but dead were only passersby and passengers of a minivan running behind the convoy.

The terrorist groups have left almost no public establishment un-attacked over this period, from hospitals and TV stations to universities and restaurants have tasted the undue violent killings. In March, Kabuls Sardar Mohammad Daoud Khan hospital was penetrated by several suicide bombers. Every war front including the Taliban leadership understands the immunity and neutrality of hospitals having no issue with war, but the armed men indifferently set off a killing spree and shot dead every one they came across in the hospital including ailing and elderly people and children.

The militants are, of course, aided and abetted by external and internal elements and this is just a show of distorted reality in Afghanistan used by war architects to hold a foot on the ground. While the terrorist groups have nothing in mind to achieve by slaughtering innocents, it rather give birth to grounds for the Wests presence and drag the fake war well into the future.

This war is stoked or afloat thanks, in most part, to the kill and then blame policy. This is well captured in Syrias Khan Sheikhon chemical attack. First the gas attack that was over-amplified in the world media was fabricated and later the ground was prepared for the US to carry out Tomahawk missile strikes on Syrian Shayrat airbase without finding that the Khan Shaikhon chemical attack was launched from this base.

According to Afghan Human Rights organization, the Afghan war has claimed some 40,000 lives only between 2009 and 2016. Laal Gul an Afghan Human Rights expert says:

The Afghan and NATO security officials never disclose a true statistic of victims of an attack.

It is aimed to simmer down public fury.

In Afghanistan, another excuse for civilian causalities is that the Taliban loyalists bury IEDs or landmines on public avenues allegedly for striking Afghan Army or the NATOs convoy, but in many instances a civilian vehicle often packed with people has run over the explosives and torn apart. In an extremely disturbing episode, a footage released earlier showed that an old man rushes to the scene where his entire familys car was blown up by a roadside bomb and desperately looks to women and childrens blood-soaked corpses that litter around the explosion point. Later it features that the man burst into tears as he lifts a lifeless childs body.

People of Afghanistan are put to suffer this way along the one-and-a-half-decade-long US war on terror.

This is while Trump is considering sending more troops to Afghanistan. In 2011, there were 100,000 US soldiers on the ground with almost the same causality rate of present day. Fewer more troops are not up to making a twist in civilian life.

Many years ago, an Afghan journalist who was not named over security reasons learned about a mind blowing fact after contacting a Taliban spokesman and asking about those innocents killed in the Taliban suicide bombing, who replied:

Those Afghans [other than foreign troops] killed in the blast would go straight to the heaven along with the suicide bomber.

The intensifying conflict tells that another huge bulk of people is about to perish in the future. The people of Afghanistan and other war-wrecked nations can no longer tolerate such a vortex which is putting them on agony.

Read more:
In Afghanistan, Civilian Casualties Happen by Design, Not by Accident - Center for Research on Globalization

West Indies news May 19, 2017

ESPNcricinfo staff

Ronsford Beaton had represented West Indies at the Under-19 World Cup in 2012 LatinContent/Getty Images

Ronsford Beaton, the 24-year old fast bowler from Guyana, is the only uncapped member in the West Indies squad for the three T20Is against Afghanistan in St Kitts from June 2.

Beaton has picked up 31 wickets in 36 T20s, with a best of 4 for 9, and has represented Guyana Amazon Warriors and Trinbago Knight Riders in the CPL.

Carlos Brathwaite (capt), Samuel Badree, Ronsford Beaton, Evin Lewis, Jason Mohammed, Sunil Narine, Kieron Pollard, Rovman Powell, Marlon Samuels, Lendl Simmons, Jerome Taylor, Chadwick Walton, Kesrick Williams

In: Ronsford Beaton

Out: Jonathan Carter, Andre Fletcher, Jason Holder, Veerasammy Permaul

Kieron Pollard, Sunil Narine, Lendl Simmons and Marlon Samuels, all of whom played the IPL, were retained from the squad that lost 2-1 to Pakistan. Jonathan Carter, Andre Fletcher and Veerasammy Permaul were left out. Jason Holder, the ODI captain, was rested.

"After the T20 series against Pakistan, we felt that it was important to keep the same group together so that the coaches can continue developing the young players," the chairman of the selection panel Courtney Browne said. "This coupled with the vast T20 experience of some of our senior players can help us to build a very formidable unit.

"In developing a high performance unit there is never room for complacency and our expectation is to win against a team that is ranked lower than us in the ICC rankings."

West Indies will be hosting a bilateral series against Afghanistan for the first time. The tour, which also includes three ODIs, will take place concurrently with the Champions Trophy, which begins on June 1 in England. West Indies, who have not won a bilateral ODI series since 2014 when they Bangladesh at home, failed to qualify for the eight-team event.

Afghanistan famously beat West Indies by six runs the last time they met in a T20I, at the 2016 World T20 in India.

ESPN Sports Media Ltd.

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Ronsford Beaton called up for Afghanistan T20Is - ESPNcricinfo.com