Dec 27 2010
A donkey in Wardak Province, Afghanistan
The population of Wardak Province, Afghanistan is blah blah. The history of Wardak is blah blah. The politics of Wardak is blah blah. The demographics of Wardak is blah blah.
And that’s all America wants to know.
Now look at the donkey!
Dec 26 2010
5th Century AD Hephthalite coin of King Lakhana
The Hephthalites were a Central Asian nomadic confederation of the AD 5th-6th centuries whose precise origins and composition remain obscure. According to Chinese chronicles, they were originally a tribe living to the north of the Great Wall and were known as Hoa or Hoa-tun. Elsewhere they were called White Huns.
Dec 24 2010
(Wikileaks transcript of CIA intercept translated from Arabic by Jacob Freeze)
“Marwan! Let us plan how strike America! Xmas terrorisms I am visualize!”
“Excellently you is think, Mohamed! Plan, then fly most direct New York outgoing nearby Hamburg International Airport!!!”
“No. Got to plan Xmas terrorisms from ass-hole of nowhere!”
A nest of al Qaeda in the Nari District of Kunar Province, Afghanistan
“Where what? Say to me not you is meaning back of beyond aka Naray (Nari), on no road nowhere no electric nothing Afghan crevasse/jumblejumble, where those there indigenous human him only got beans for eat/sell!”
Planning Xmas terror in Nari Kunar!
“How go thou in/out, Mohamed?”
“Fly Hamburg Karachi, Karachi Kabul, Kabul Jalalabad, buy donkey, walk/ride 34 days.”
“Why?”
“Got to meet there with al Qaeda mastermind!”
Dec 24 2010
As this Country Still Refuses to Sacrifice Themselves, in any way, keep in mind the soldiers deployed and their families here!
Dec 21 2010
The Green Mosque is almost the only building left standing in ancient Balkh, Mother of Cities.
The most popular poet in America was born here in AD 1207.
Can you make a mirror out of straw and mud?
But sweep away mud and straw
and a mirror may be revealed!
Everything that exists is an empire of delight.
Jesus was delighted by the love of God.
His donkey was delighted by oats.
You entered this world as a nameless star
and now you ask me
“How can I find my way through the night?”Forget your name
and let the love inside you light up the sky!
Dec 21 2010
Billions have been spent on these Wars of choice! With those Billions spent Billions were made by many, new multi-millionaires with connections were produced as well as a high priced merc private army and more. Directly and indirectly over the decade of these ongoing conflicts!
Dec 20 2010
Azeri Folk Life carpet from Nuristan Province, Afghanistan
The Turkmen who came out of Central Asia into Persia and the Ottoman Empire were Oghuz and now their descendents speak a dialect of Northern or Southern Azeri.
The Kizil Ajak are considered to be one of the identifiable component tribes of the old Ersari Confederation. The Kizil Ajak are one of the Turkmen tribes in Northern Afghanistan that was south of the Russian market influence in the 19th century and consequently have a distinctly different look.
Cows, ducks, goats, pheasants, chickens, walnut and almond orchards, oak and mulberry groves…
This is the fabric of life for most of Afghanistan, but for American “nation-builders” the infinite spectrum of Afghan folkways and tribal allegiances transplanted from all over Southwest Asia and the Middle East is nothing but an impediment in the course of cultural, social, and economic development which inevitably culminates in global capitalism and our own shit-culture.
Dec 20 2010
Voices for Creative Nonviolence representatives in Kabul are privileged to be meeting with representatives of the Afghan Youth Peace Volunteers, (AYPV), a group of teenagers based in Bamiyan, Afghanistan who campaign to promote nonviolence. As the Obama administration releases its December Review of U.S. war in Afghanistan, the AYPV, along with Afghans for Peace, have issued a review of their experiences. To express support for their letter, follow this link. — Kathy Kelly.
We Want You Out
An open letter from the Afghan Youth Peace Volunteers and Afghans for Peace
To all the leaders of our world, the leaders of the US-led coalition, the Afghan government, the ‘Taliban/Al-Qaeda’ and regional countries,
We are intolerably angry.
All our senses are hurting.
Our women, our men and yes shame on you, our children are grieving.
Your Afghan civilian-military strategy is a murderous stench we smell, see, hear and breathe.
President Obama, and all the elite players and people of the world, why?
Dec 19 2010
Staff Sgt. Justin E. Schmalstieg
Renee Drummond-Brown, whose son, Specialist Cardell Nino Brown, was close friends with Mr. Schmalstieg, described him as “a very brilliant mind.” She said Mr. Schmalstieg spent so much time at her house as a child that she considered him a son.
Even as a child he was unusually quiet and calm, she said, traits that would have served him well as a bomb technician.
“He was the one with the peaceful spirit,” she said.
Spec. Sean R. Cutsforth
His wife said he played football as well as baseball at Brentsville, and was also on a traveling youth baseball team. She said Cutsforth received a scholarship to Virginia Wesleyan College in Norfolk and spent three semesters there. He studied recreation and leisure activities and coached swimming.
She said she is expecting a child. It’s a boy, she said.
“Them as a couple, they really completed each other,” said Beth Whitaker, a family friend. “They were each other’s best friends.”
Lance Cpl. Jose A. Hernandez
Mirna Collazo, Hernandez’s ex-girlfriend, thought of a promise that Hernandez made before he was deployed to Afghanistan. Collazo said that she and Hernandez dated for about four months, but separated in large part because he didn’t want her to carry the burden of his fighting in a war.
“He always said, ‘I don’t want it to be hard on you,'” Collazo said. “But little did he know, it still is. He said, ‘If you promise me that you’re going to see me when I get back, I’ll promise you that I’ll come back.’ Now I’m just left with his promise.”
Dec 19 2010
Crossposted from Fire on the Mountain.
Even though the official Obama administration review of Afghanistan shows just how shaky the occupation there is, Wikileaks continues to be the big news story two weeks on (thanks in no small part to the US decision to try and take down Julian Assange via a sex scandal–the media loves them some sex scandals, especially ones involving slender, pale blonds).
There’s one document in the first thousand released that I want to highlight here, in part in observance this weekend and Friday of the monthly War Moratorium. The story takes place at the corner of Afghanistan and Wikileaks. Though it also features non-consensual sex, it has received little play in the US media. (No blonds, perhaps?) And behind the sex lies an even more shocking story.
The cable (as they are called) from Kabul to Washington reports a desperate plea by Afghan Minister of the Interior Hanif Atmar to US embassy officials. He needs help covering up a story he fears will break soon.
Dec 18 2010
Me bakhshi!
Excuse me!
Nafahmedum.
I don’t understand.
Sharmanda!
I’m sorry!
Mefaamom ke da Afghaanestaan amneyat ney-s.
I know there is no security in Afghanistan.
Ke khana borom.
I want to go home.
Khoda hafiz!
May God protect you!
Ba amone Khuda.
Goodbye.
Dec 17 2010
A Baluchi rug from Nimruz Province, Afghanistan
“But the longer I stayed, the less consistent the answers became. Yesterday’s Aimaq could be today’s Taimani. I mention all this as a way of explaining how very difficult it is to get a clear understanding of rug weaving in Afghanistan. There are still plenty of real Turkoman and Baluch to talk to – and real work to be done, perhaps by Western women with language skills. Weaving is part of the womens’ world and men will always be outsiders.”
-Jerry Anderson