by Oui
Fri Jul 2nd, 2021 at 09:54:40 AM EST
Afghanistan Risks Descent Into Civil War
US forces leave Afghanistan's Bagram airbase after 20 years
Too US Gen. Austin S. Miller Says Security in Afghanistan Deteriorating | AP News |
... says the rapid loss of districts around the country to the Taliban -- several with significant strategic value -- is worrisome. He also cautioned that the militias deployed to help the beleaguered national security forces could lead the country into civil war.
In Afghanistan, the Dead Cast a Long Shadow | FP|
With Afghanistan again facing a political crisis, Mohammed Najibullah’s tarnished memory is being rehabilitated by some. But the crimes of the last Soviet-supported president, who was killed by the Taliban, are hardly forgotten.
On the second day of Eid al-Fitr, the Islamic festival commemorating the end of Ramadan, Hamdullah Mohib, Afghanistan’s national security advisor and would-be president, visited an inconspicuous burial site in the southeastern province of Paktia and dug up quite a stir.
The grave belonged to Mohammed Najibullah, Afghanistan’s last communist president, brutally murdered when the Taliban took over Kabul in 1996. Mohib is the first post-Taliban senior government official to ever pay his respects there. The controversial visit had several objectives for Mohib: to court Afghans, especially many nationalist Pashtuns, who recall Najibullah as a charismatic Afghan patriot who launched a national reconciliation process, and also as a reminder of the enduring brutality of the Taliban, who again today stand poised to share power, if not take it outright, as Kabul, Washington, and the Taliban grope their way toward the conclusion of an agonizing peace process.
But many Afghans, especially those who fought on the side of the mujahideen rebels in the 1980s, found Mohib’s actions provocative, even offensive. Mahmoud Saikal, a former Afghan envoy to the United Nations, criticized Mohib for visiting the grave of “a murderer of the people.” Others recoiled at Najibullah’s bloody record as head of the Soviet-backed secret police. “It’s a shame that he visited the grave of this murderer. Najibullah killed and tortured thousands of innocent people,” said Modaser Islami, a Kabul-based activist focusing on Islamic issues.
My earlier writing ...
From the diaries ...
Torture, Torture, more Torture, and Rape too
by Chris Kulczycki on Nov 30th, 2005
Pushing Back on the Executive Branch
by danps Sat Feb 28th, 2009
Once abuse has been introduced and accepted, a change of administration does not reverse the evil. Just waiting for Trump to carry abuse beyond any UN Convention or review of human rights.
