One of the reasons to invade Afghanistan was to liberate the population from the medieval rule of the Taliban. In most senses that has happened, as the Taliban is only strong in pockets and has recently been facing a military surge.
All of that being said, there has been rising discomfort that the new...
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Author Archive
The Fairer Sex?
The Bad News Continues…
It appears that the Marjah offensive is working militarily, and that is good news. Whenever the U.S. military is successful, I’m usually happy and relieved. However, it looks like the military victory was the easy part and that managing and governing the area looks to be the long slog.
The news just seems...
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The Offensive Begins…
It’s official: the U.S. military, led by the Marines, have ramped up a new offensive in Afghanistan in order to make the country more secure. Helmand Province in southern Afghanistan, near Kandahar, is the locus of this new offensive. Long a Taliban stronghold, the south of the country has been the most risky...
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This Just In…
It appears that bribery and corruption in Afghanistan are much more widespread than I had originally believed. While watching The Dylan Ratigan Show on MSNBC, a UN report mentioned shed light on the problem plaguing Afghanistan today.
According to the UN’s Office of Drugs and Crime, Afghanistan spends US$2.5 BILLION each year on bribery...
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Don’t Let History Repeat Itself
A fourth part in the Afghanistan series
Thirty years ago this Christmas Eve will be the anniversary of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. It’s interesting to think that the United States will succeed where the Soviets failed. Newsweek has an interesting article on avoiding making the same Soviet mistakes. Questions abound: How much...
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And the (Afghanistan) Plot Thickens…
As most people know by now, President Obama has decided to send an additional 30,000 troops to Afghanistan. The decision was made in part for political reasons and it is doubtful anyone is truly happy with it; on the right, there are those who do not believe he provided the military with the...
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And the Winner is…Karzai (again)
Hamid Karzai is yet again the President of Afghanistan, and he didn’t even need to rig the election to do it this time. After two and a half months of confusion and negotiation, Presidential challenger Abdullah Abdullah withdrew from the run-off election slated for next weekend. Believing that he would not win,...
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Sport Imitates Life
On October 2, 2009, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) made a very interesting decision that on many levels reflects the current shift in the international system. The choices: Chicago, Tokyo, Rio de Janeiro and Madrid. Why, with the security of Chicago or Tokyo, did the IOC choose Rio? My answer...
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Electoral Fraud in Afghanistan
Recent elections in Iran and Afghanistan have one very important thing in common: very strong evidence of fraud. This should not be very surprising, but it should give pause in that some areas of both countries saw turnout greater than the actual number of voters. While Iran does not put up too much...
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The Second World: Empires and Influence in the New Global Order
The Second World: Empires and Influence in the New Global Order by Parag Khanna, Random House, New York, 2008, $29.00.
In his new book The Second World, Parag Khanna deconstructs the post-Cold War world. Khanna divides the First World into what he calls the three empires, the United States, European Union and China. ...
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