Showing posts with label Afghanistan. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Afghanistan. Show all posts

Sunday, March 4, 2012

A week later, this essay still resonates: Andrew C. McCarthy in NRO: Why Apologize to Afghanistan?


A week later, after reading many other articles about what's been going on in Afghanistan that either just beat around the bush or which -surprise- made excuses for President Obama, this essay still resonates for a reason:

National Review Online         
Why Apologize to Afghanistan?
By Andrew C. McCarthy
February 25, 2012 4:00 A.M.

We have officially lost our minds.
The New York Times reports that President Obama has sent a formal letter of apology to Afghanistan’s ingrate president, Hamid Karzai, for the burning of Korans at a U.S. military base. The only upside of the apology is that it appears (based on the Times account) to be couched as coming personally from our blindly Islamophilic president — “I wish to express my deep regret for the reported incident. . . . I extend to you and the Afghani people my sincere apologies.” It is not couched as an apology from the American people, whose frame of mind will be outrage, not contrition, as the facts become more widely known.
The facts are that the Korans were seized at a jail because jihadists imprisoned there were using them not for prayer but to communicate incendiary messages. The soldiers dispatched to burn refuse from the jail were not the officials who had seized the books, had no idea they were burning Korans, and tried desperately to retrieve the books when the situation was brought to their attention.
Read the rest of the post at 

Andrew C. McCarthy column homepage at NROhttp://www.nationalreview.com/author/52265

Saturday, July 2, 2011

Corteges for British war dead returning from Afghanistan to soon drive down side streets to avoid public in Wootton Bassett; town residents upset

Sky News video
: War dead to be driven down side streets to avoid the public.
July 2, 2011. http://youtu.be/2_rTmaQj7Qc


News that funeral corteges for British war dead returning from Afghanistan will intentionally bypass the public in Wootton Bassett and Carterton starting in September, after the closing of RAF Lyneham, and instead, drive thru RAF Brize Norton, continues to outrage many area residents who feel that the new policy is insulting.

Video from two years ago shows what some of those corteges can be like.
This is the tradition they want to end.

ITN News Video: British troops killed in Afghanistan returned home


Read more about the tradition here in The Guardian:
Loyal Wootton Bassett to become Royal Wootton Bassett
Wiltshire town gains rare title in recognition of its honouring of fallen service personnel returning to Britain
By Steven Morris, guardian.co.uk,
Wednesday 16 March 2011 13.03 GMT

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REPATRIATION OF BRITISH ARMED FORCES PERSONNEL KILLED IN SERVICE

The timings for the funeral corteges of personnel who have been killed in service, and who have been repatriated through RAF Lyneham, are published on the Wootton Bassett Town Council website. Timings are subject to change at short notice, so please use the Wootton Bassett Town Council website for up to date information.


As of today, RAF Brize Norton in Oxfordshire remains the largest station in the U.K.

See more on the base's ties to the U.S. Army Air Corps/Air Force here:

Monday, September 20, 2010

Rania Abouzeid in Foreign Policy Magazine: The World's Worst Place for Women Just Got Worse

The World's Worst Place for Women?

So many possible "winners" but the answer is Pakistan.

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FOREIGN POLICY

What the Waters Washed Away
The rural, conservative refugees from Pakistan’s floods have not only lost their homes, but also their entire way of life.


By Rania Abouzeid

September 17, 2010

CHARSADDA, Pakistan-Zeynat wipes her tears away with the edge of her donated, cream-colored dupatta. Her family was separated shortly after raging floodwaters destroyed her modest, mud-brick home, and it has been well over a month since she last saw her three teenage daughters. For the past week, Zeynat and her mother-in-law have been sharing a tent with her friend and former neighbor, Bach Sultan, and four of Sultan's children, in a makeshift settlement here in Charsadda, in the socially conservative and insurgency-plagued Khyber Pakhtunkwa province bordering Afghanistan.

Zeynat's tent, which lies just feet away from the dozens of others pitched alongside Charsadda's Sugar Mill mosque, is sweltering inside. The front and back tent flaps are kept open in the hope of attracting a breeze, but they merely serve to expose the women to the view of passersby. The women say that custom prevents them from idly sitting outside. The camp's proximity to the mosque means that the building's bathrooms are available for use by the flood victims. This ensures them a modicum of privacy absent from many other camps, which lack sanitation or rely on outdoor toilets.


Read the rest of the post at:

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2010/09/17/what_the_waters_washed_away


See also:
Foreign Policy
New attacks stun Pakistan

By Imtiaz Gul
September 10, 2010
http://www.imtiazgul.com/Sep_10_2010.html

http://www.imtiazgul.com/


http://www.foreignpolicy.com/

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U.S. Fund for UNICEF: Alyssa Milano on Pakistan flooding

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hjIhTici7JM

Monday, August 16, 2010

Just wondering: If private security firms are dis-banded in Afghanistan, who will protect the news media that's not embedded?

Just wondering: If private security firms are dis-banded in Afghanistan, who will protect the news media that's not embedded?

The Washington Post
Karzai moves to disband private security firms in Afghanistan

By Joshua Partlow

Monday, August 16, 2010; 9:58 AM


KABUL -- President Hamid Karzai intends to disband all private security companies in Afghanistan within four months, his spokesman said Monday, a timeline that likely will meet with strong resistance from NATO forces who rely heavily on the companies to provide security to convoys and installations across the country.


The announcement came as a surprise to U.S. military officials who have recently begun a review of their security contracts in an attempt to address the widespread allegations that such guards are unaccountable and that their reckless behavior inflames public sentiment against foreign forces


Read the rest of the article at:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/08/16/AR2010081602041.html

For more on the nexus of American diplomacy, the military and the intelligence agencies, see the Washington Post's Checkpoint Washington blog at
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/checkpoint-washington/

Their latest post is: Gates retiring? Don't bet on it.