A previous article on this site quoted sections of Ahmed Rashid’s TALIBAN: Militant Islam, Oil and Fundamentalism in Central Asia (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2000), a partial copy of which is available here. The following is a review by M. Jamil Hanifi published in The Middle East Journal, with details of the history of… Read More Afghanistan and the Emergence of the Taliban: Reviewed Works
REVISED & UPDATED (Sat. 09 May 2009) Is there any surprise to how American “justice” works when it comes to American war criminals? Have there not been enough minor sentences, and enough kangaroo courts of foreign detainees, to establish this fact? Following John Stanton, who was present for the sentencing of Ayala at the Eastern… Read More No Time in Jail for a U.S. War Criminal: A Mercenary Gets Away with Murdering a Detainee in Afghanistan
A court hearing is underway to determine the sentence for Don Michael Ayala, the U.S. mercenary who was employed by the Human Terrain System, the program that also hired the army reservist and anthropologist, Paula Loyd, set on fire by Abdul Salam in Chehel Gazi, Kandahar Province, Afghanistan on 04 November 2008, and dying from… Read More Whitewashing a U.S. War Crime in Afghanistan: The Trial of Don Ayala, “Human Terrain” Mercenary
“The Westerners claim that they have brought democracy to Afghanistan. What does democracy mean? It means government by the people for the people. They should let the people use these democratic rights” (Mohammad Asif Mohseni, senior Afghan cleric and legislator, 11 April 2009) “I hope that we have elevated in the hearts and minds of… Read More NATO and Afghanistan’s Shia Marriage Law: The Collapse of a Master Narrative
