The Progressive January 18, 2025: On Biden’s foreign policy legacy, comparing his support for a far right Middle Eastern government engaging in massive war crimes with Reagan’s support for far right Central American governments engaged in massive war crimes… [source]
Category: Afghanistan
Afghanistan
WORT: 9/11 Anniversary
9 September 2021: Recording is no longer available.
[Find best related links.]
WMNF: US and Afghanistan
2 September 2021: Recording is no longer available.
[Find best related links.]
KPFA Talkies & Sunday Show: US and Afghanistan
31 August 2021: A bomb kills Marines and Afghans trying to flee the Taliban—and the bomber was NOT Taliban. Lessons from the past, analysis of the present, and a peer into the future with Stephen Zunes. Hosted by Kris Welch (starting at 9:45). See also Tazeen Hasan: Afghanistan
KPFA Sunday Show: US and Afghanistan
28 August 2021: A bomb kills Marines and Afghans trying to flee the Taliban—and the bomber was NOT Taliban. Lessons from the past, analysis of the present, and a peer into the future with Stephen Zunes. Hosted by Kris Welch (starting at 9:45). See also Tazeen Hasan: Afghanistan
Tazeen Hasan: Afghanistan
20 August 2021: Recording is no longer available.
Find best Afghanistan links and TazeenHasan.net
CGTN Asia Today: Afghanistan
19 August 2021: Recording is no longer available.
Find best Afghanistan related links
Media Sanctuary: U.S. and Afghanistan
18 August 2021: on [MediaSanctuary.org]
Prof. Stephen Zunes Shares Analysis of Afghanistan War, Withdrawal and History.
Radio Islam International: U.S. and Afghanistan
17 August 2021: “U.S. Government Still Trying to Come to Terms with How Quickly Taliban Took Over Afghanistan.”
US Policy Toward Afghanistan Was a Recipe for Collapse From the Start
Truthout August 17, 2021: The rapid fall of the U.S.-backed government in Afghanistan and takeover by Taliban extremists has stunned the world. President Biden has nevertheless defended his decision to withdraw…
Pacifica Radio Flashpoints: US and Afghanistan
Pacifica 16 August 2021: US and Afghanistan: Leaving is never easy<
Maintaining U.S. presence in Afghanistan would bolster Taliban: expert says
Tehran Times October 19, 2013
On October 12 Washington and Kabul agreed on a draft deal that would keep some U.S. forces in Afghanistan after 2014, but only if political and tribal leaders in Afghanistan agree to a U.S. demand that U.S. troops not be subject to Afghan law…
Behind the Headlines: the CIA and Post 9/11 National Security with NY Times Reporter Eric Schmitt (audio)
NPR/The Commonwealth Club November 19, 2012; Podcast & MP3
Stephen Zunes moderates this lively exchange with Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times senior writer Eric Schmitt on military, terrorism and national security challenges in the post-9/11 world.
The Killing of Bin Laden and the Threat of Al Qaeda
Huffington Post May 5, 2011
The killing of Al-Qaeda founder and leader Osama bin Laden is not likely to have a profound impact… the organization has decentralized in the ten years since the U.S. and allied forces drove them from their sanctuaries in Afghanistan and terrorist cells operate independently… [source].
Interview: The Afghanistan Mess (audio)
“Middle East scholar Dr. Stephen Zunes talks about how U.S. imperial hubris helped create, and continues to deepen and intensify the deadly chaos in Afghanistan. “The war not only was raised some moral and legal questions, but it has not resolved the situation, it has made matters worse. The problem is that there has been a gross oversight on the military side of the equation. The really important issues have been overlooked.”
Audio File:
http://www.couragetoresist.org/x/images/stories/audio/zunes.mp3
The U.S. and Afghan Tragedy
Foreign Policy In Focus/IPS February 18, 2009
By Khushal Arsala, Emily Schwartz Greco, Stephen Zunes [source] One of the first difficult foreign policy decisions of the Obama administration will be what the United States should do about Afghanistan. Escalating the war, as National Security Advisor Jim Jones has been encouraging, will likely make matters worse. At the same time, simply abandoning the country — as the United States did after the overthrow of Afghanistan’s Communist government soon after the Soviet withdrawal 20 years ago — would lead to another set of serious problems. http://www.fpif.org/reports/the_us_and_afghan_tragedy
Holbrooke: Insensitive Choice for a Sensitive Region
Foreign Policy in Focus, January 30, 2009
Obama’s choice for special envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan, arguably the most critical area of U.S. foreign policy, is a man with perhaps the most sordid history of any of his largely disappointing foreign policy and national security appointments. Richard Holbrooke got his start in the Foreign Service during the 1960s, in the notorious pacification programs in the Mekong Delta of South Vietnam. This ambitious joint civilian-military effort not only included horrific human rights abuses but also proved to be a notorious failure in curbing the insurgency against the U.S.-backed regime in Saigon. https://www.ourcampaigns.com/NewsDetail.html?NewsID=55930
https://www.ashevilleglobalreport.org/articles/holbrooke-insensitive-choice-for-a-sensitive-region
Pakistan’s Dictatorships and the United States
Foreign Policy In Focus/IPS December 12, 2007
In his 2005 inaugural address, President George W. Bush declared that the United States would support democratic movements around the world and work to end tyranny. Furthermore, he pledged to those struggling for freedom that the United States would “not ignore your oppression, or excuse your oppressors.” Despite these promises, the Bush administration—with the apparent acquiescence of the Democratic-controlled Congress—has instead decided to continue U.S. support for the dictatorship of General Pervez Musharraf, Pakistan’s president. http://fpif.org/articles/pakistans_dictatorships_and_the_united_states
Operation Enduring Freedom: A Retrospective
Foreign Policy In Focus, By John Feffer, Stephen Zunes | October 17, 2006
It has become a given, even among many progressive critics of Bush administration policy, that while the U.S. war on Iraq was illegal, immoral, unnecessary, poorly executed, and contrary to America’s national security interests, the war on Afghanistan–which was launched five years ago last week–was a legal, moral, and a necessary response to protect American national security in the aftermath of 9/11…
Afghanistan: Five Years Later
Foreign Policy In Focus, By John Feffer, Stephen Zunes | October 13, 2006
On the fifth anniversary of the launch of the U.S.-led war against Afghanistan, the Taliban is on the offensive, much of the countryside is in the hands of warlords and opium magnates, U.S. casualties are mounting, and many, if not most, Afghans are actually worse off now than they were before the U.S. invasion…