The Washington Post today reports that Gen. McChrystal is likely about to request more troops for the stated rationale of protecting the civilian population in Afghanistan. President Obama should deny this request because no past increase in U.S. troops in Afghanistan prevented a subsequent yearly increase in a) civilian casualties generally or b) civilian casualties [...]
Archive for July, 2009
Troop Increases Fail to Decrease Civilian Casualties in Afghanistan
Posted: July 31, 2009 in UncategorizedTags: Afghanistan, civilian casualties, McChrystal, troop increase
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So Much for Airstrike Reduction, Lowering Civilian Casualties
Posted: July 30, 2009 in UncategorizedTags: Afghanistan, civilian casualties, civilian deaths, drones, Pakistan
The United States should pursue strategies in Afghanistan that focus on reducing civilian deaths and enhancing stability. However, a report today by Julian Barnes at the LA Times shows that the U.S. is shifting drones from hunting al-Qaida to attacking suspected Taliban in Afghanistan, a shift likely to cause more civilian deaths and further destabilization. [...]
Help us provide nonviolence training in Texas
Posted: July 29, 2009 in UncategorizedTags: nonviolence, Texas Nonviolence Resource
I just sent this email to my friends and family. We’re working to get a new nonprofit off the ground in Texas to provide nonviolence trainings to people and groups around the state. Please donate if you can: As some of you may already know, Laurie (my wife) and I, together with a co-worker, have [...]
Holbrooke Gets All Flippant and Cute
Posted: July 28, 2009 in UncategorizedTags: Afghanistan, Blackwater, casualties, Cheney, elections, Holbrooke
I was baffled by the cavalier attitude displayed yesterday by Richard Holbrooke about violence in Afghanistan. Sounding positively Dick-Cheney-ish, Dick Holbrooke waved away concerns about the potential of widespread violence to damage the legitimacy of the upcoming elections. Here he is during an NPR interview, emphasis mine: Q: Wouldn’t the people, though, who can’t vote [...]
The Underbelly of the “Civilian Surge”: Blackwater Surge
Posted: July 28, 2009 in UncategorizedTags: Afghanistan, Blackwater, civilian surge, Department of State, Xe
Much has been made of the so-called “civilian surge” that’s supposed to accompany the military escalation in Afghanistan, but it comes with an ugly caveat: a civilian surge means an escalation in the presence of private military contractors like Xe, formerly known as Blackwater, acting as guards and bodyguards. Nancy Youssef’s McClatchy article last week [...]
Apologies
Posted: July 26, 2009 in UncategorizedTags: Afghanistan, Dostum, mass grave, Physicians for Human Rights
We are moving into a new home this week, and I will be hard-pressed to find the time or the energy to blog. In the meantime, I’ll be posting links to stories on nonviolence, Christianity, and Afghanistan for your reading enjoyment while I’m otherwise occupied. Here’s the first: If you haven’t yet heard the excellent [...]
Reasons for Hope
Posted: July 22, 2009 in UncategorizedTags: Christianity, nonviolence, Revelation, violence
A friend recently sent me a great article from The New Scientist called “Winning the Ultimate Battle,” which details the work of anthropologists and others showing that war is not inherent in human biology. …[A]nthropologists Carolyn and Melvin Ember from Yale University…argue that biology alone cannot explain documented patterns of warfare. They oversee the Human [...]
Brookings Report on Drones Confirms High Civilian Death Rate and Misses the Point
Posted: July 21, 2009 in UncategorizedTags: Brookings Institution, civilian casualties, civilian deaths, Daniel Byman, drones, Leon Panetta, Pakistan
To their credit, the folks over at the Brookings Institution have become one of the first mainstream think tanks to recognize the horrendously indiscriminate nature of drone attacks in Pakistan. Brookings Institute scholar Daniel Byman wrote last Monday: Critics correctly find many problems with this program, most of all the number of civilian casualties the [...]
Howard Dean on Continued War in Afghanistan: YEAAAGGGHHH!!!!
Posted: July 19, 2009 in UncategorizedTags: Afghanistan, Howard Dean, Kabul, Rule of the Rapists, war
Yeah, I went there. I rooted for Howard Dean until the end in 2004. I remember watching the video feed as he let out his infamous “Dean Scream,” thinking to myself that this man is trying just a little to hard to keep his supporters’ enthusiasm going. Most people who were paying attention to the [...]
Taliban and U.S. Trade Threats Over Captured Troop, Civilians in the Middle
Posted: July 17, 2009 in UncategorizedTags: Afghanistan, Bagram, Capt. Elizabeth Mathias, COIN, counterinsurgency, Ghazni, home raids, Paktika, pashtunwali, Taliban
Fair warning: rough language below. In her recent column in The Guardian, Nushin Arbabzadah said: “As local wisdom has it, there are three types of people in Afghanistan today: al-Qaida (the fighters), al-faida (the enriched) and al-gaida (the fucked). Most Afghans belong to the third category.” U.S. public communications in Afghanistan seems determined to reinforce [...]
