Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan

For the last two weeks, a 15,000-strong army of NATO, British and American forces has been carrying out military operations in a small are i.e. Marjah which is located in Nad Ali district. A number of jet bombers of the enemy including unmanned drones and 60 gunship helicopters are taking part in the operations. In addition to this, the enemy have brought to the battle field their huge and most advanced tanks by the name of Abraham and Shifton, which approximately weigh 65 tons. But despite the preparations, boasts and propaganda stunts, the enemy have not been able to make any headway against a small group of Mujahideen who are not more than 1000 armed men and their weapons are no match with those of the enemy. But still the sacrificing and committed Mujahideen have bravely blocked the invaders’ way successfully.

Skilled snipers have put shock and awe into the ranks of the enemy. The Mujahideen have blown up 53 tanks; shot down two unmanned drones and one helicopter besides killing tens of soldiers. An Afghan honor-loving woman made history by shooting soldiers pointblank in the bazaar. She revived the memory of Malalai of the past and proved by her heroic act, that still there are many sisters-in-arms of Malalai in this land. If we count the crews in the tanks which have been destroyed, we can easily conclude that the enemy losses are more than one hundred soldiers.

More »

Stephen M. Walt

When I got out of the shower this morning, my wife was waking up to NPR. Her first comment to me was this: “I never thought I would hear an NPR reporter say those words.” What had she just heard? A report that the Obama administration was “under fire” for defending the rights of terrorist suspects.

She wasn’t complaining about NPR’s coverage, mind you, she was commenting on the bizarre situation where anyone -- let alone a president and his administration -- could be “under fire” for defending a core principle of the American justice system. The Founding Fathers would be spinning in their graves, about as fast as a nuclear centrifuge. They understood the dangers of giving executives arbitrary authority to arrest, detain, coerce, and try suspects (i.e., those whom authorities think might have committed a crime but whose guilt has not yet been determined). So suspects -- all suspects -- are accorded certain legal rights.

I’m not a lawyer and so I don’t normally weigh in on legal issues, including the continuing debate over torture, the use of civilian vs. military tribunals to try suspected terrorists, and the other aspects of post-9/11 policy. As a matter of policy, however, the case for abandoning our normal criminal justice procedures strikes me as laughably weak.

More »

Chris Floyd

"But really, Barack Obama's vaunted "Nobel Peace Surge" in Afghanistan is churning out collateral damage at such a clip that Stan should probably just go ahead and schedule a regular "Oops" conference on, say, every Friday, so he can dole out a one-stop dollop of crocodile tears for all the week's atrocities. He's a busy man, after all; it takes a lot of time and energy to lead the forces of HELL."

The humanitarian march of civilization goes on, and on, and on, and on...

A NATO helicopter airstrike on Sunday against what international troops believed to be a group of insurgents ended up killing as many as 27 civilians in the worst such case since at least September, Afghan officials said Monday...

The attack was carried out by United States Special Forces helicopters that were patrolling the area hunting for insurgents who had escaped the NATO offensive in the Marja area, about 150 miles away, according to Gen. Abdul Hameed, an Afghan National Army commander in Dehrawood, which is part of Oruzgan Province. General Hameed, interviewed by telephone, said there had been no request from any ground forces to carry out an attack...

Zemarai Bashary, the spokesman for the Interior Ministry, said the victims were all civilians who were attacked by air while traveling in two Land Cruisers and a pickup truck, which carried 42 people in all...

More »

David Kerans

Recent revelations concerning the shakiness of the finances of Greece, Portugal, Ireland, and Spain have sent shock waves far beyond the financial community, and alerted wide sections of the world public to the reality that the financial crisis begun in 2008 is far from over, and could be entering a new phase. Wherever they may begin, defaults on sovereign debt would rock ships of state, and send losses spiraling out beyond their borders to the many sources of their funding. State services and public order might suffer on a broad scale, with cascading consequences for economies and for citizens’ quality of life.

Alas, discerning analysts have spotted these cascading consequences already in motion across much of the US, as state and municipal governments begin to struggle with epic and seemingly intractable budget shortfalls (1). By one count, at least seven large US states (holding 35% of the population) are in more financial peril than any of the aforementioned European nations (2). Little noticed amid the headlines regarding Greece and the EU, the investment community has even begun placing bets on a US federal government debt default down the road. The implication of this sentiment is clear. It suspects not merely that the US faces daunting economic problems, but that the country is incapable of solving them.

More »

Colin Woodard

The shadow of a worker falls on a wall at a Hungarian steel in the
northeastern city of Miskolc. Heavy industries across Eastern
Europe, once beacons of planned economies, survived the collapse
of communism 20 years ago but may not live to see the end of the
current economic crisis. (Photo by Laszlo Balogh/Reuters.)

Hit hard by the global downturn, Europe’s former Soviet-bloc countries are suffering from rising unemployment and poverty; some officials question the post-Communist drive to privatize and deregulate.

OLOMOUC, Czech Republic – Before the worldwide financial crash, things were looking up for this medieval university town, 170 miles east of Prague. Local manufacturing sales were up, unemployment was down, and the local soccer team ranked as a European powerhouse.

But the Great Recession has battered the export-driven Czech economy, and the pain has trickled down to Olomouc’s graffiti-plagued streets. Layoffs of thousands in the textile and machinery industries have driven local unemployment to 11.3 percent, nearly three points above the national average. And soccer club Sigma Olomouc is making news not for beating its rivals, but for the local hooligans who keep beating up visiting Scottish fans in tear gas-assisted assaults.

The global economic crisis has hit Central and Eastern Europe especially hard, less than a decade since the former Soviet satellite countries and newly independent Baltic States emerged from their long and painful transition to a free market system and attained European Union membership.

More »