Kandahar – ZERO ANTHROPOLOGY

Afghanistan and the Emergence of the Taliban: Reviewed Works

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 […]

by Maximilian C. Forte

No Time in Jail for a U.S. War Criminal: A Mercenary Gets Away with Murdering a Detainee in Afghanistan

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 […]

by Maximilian C. Forte

Whitewashing a U.S. War Crime in Afghanistan: The Trial of Don Ayala, “Human Terrain” Mercenary

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 […]

by Maximilian C. Forte

NATO and Afghanistan’s Shia Marriage Law: The Collapse of a Master Narrative

“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 […]

by Maximilian C. Forte

John Stanton: Hamas’ IT Tops Human Terrain System IT in Internet Capability, Savvy (2.1)

Below, following my comments, you will find the latest article from John Stanton, the tenth in a series on the Human Terrain System, this time focusing on the information technology aspect of the Human Terrain System. Stanton noticed that while Hamas is able to almost immediately launch a memorial page for each of the fighters […]

by Maximilian C. Forte

Canada’s own Human Terrain System: White Situational Awareness Team in Afghanistan

On August 1st I wrote, “In Canada we seem to have, at least in terms of objective conditions, all of the necessary ingredients, waiting to come together: we have military colleges, troops in Afghanistan, a domestic spy agency (CSIS), collaboration with the U.S. in Guantanamo interrogations, mass mediated allegations of ‘terrorist’ cells in Canada, growing […]