Afghanistan's' Chicago resistance

[sad sally]

Nato's murderous occupation will feel the strength of American and Afghan solidarity in Chicago this weekend -
Malalai Joya in Kabul
guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 16 May 2012

Thousands of protesters are expected to descend on Chicago this weekend for Nato's annual summit where Afghanistan will be top of the agenda. It promises to be one of the most important anti-war demonstrations of our generation. I will be unable to travel to attend, but from here in Kabul I can tell you that the whole country will be watching Chicago this weekend.

The protesters remind us that the US government is not representative of the US people. It's encouraging to see so many willing to take action and stand up against this unjust, disastrous war.

Recently Barack Obama travelled to Kabul to meet Afghanistan's so-called president, Hamid Karzai. Both leaders used this meeting to pretend that they are ending this war when they are really trying to prolong it. Obama knows that the American people are turning against the war, and both men also know that the Afghan people are against not only the war, but the continued occupation of their country. Both claim that the war will end in 2014, while saying simultaneously that American troops will remain in some capacity until 2024. As 2024 nears they will probably say they mean to remain in Afghanistan until 2034.

The reality is that the US and its Nato allies plan to dominate Afghanistan and the larger region militarily for the next generation. Their reasoning is geostrategic: to control our energy and mineral resources, and maintain military superiority over China and other competitors.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/may/16/afghanistan-chicago-resistance-nato

[Peregrine Took]

1. I noticed Slick Rahm is putting lots of women cops and cycle cops out there in front.

Thinking about those photos going to go all around the world.

There are plenty of riot clad cops in the turtle suits but I think they come out last - if there's trouble only.

The intermediate crew are the cops on horses.

SLICK!

[sad sally]

2. The Afghan women and children affected by the US's 10+ years of war should be shown every day,

but somehow are not important to the occupiers (us). So instead, this weekend in a fortfied Chicago, the US will ask NATO countries to pony up more cash to pay for more bombs - sweet and double slick.


Afghanistan: The Quagmire of U.S. Occupation

In many places outside Kabul, the Taliban and other warlords are in total control of local militias

By Nicole Colson

The U.S. war and occupation of Afghanistan was supposed to bring stability and democracy. Instead, Afghanistan remains a country on the brink of disaster – one that has clearly been exacerbated by the U.S. presence.

More than 10 years after the U.S. war began, in spite of the presence of about 2,000 international aid groups, at least $3.5 billion in humanitarian funds and $58 billion in development assistance, humanitarian conditions in Afghanistan remain abysmal.

This past winter, one of the harshest in recent years, compounded the suffering of those living in refugee camps – an estimated 35,000 people just in the capital of Kabul, and many more around the country. The camps, according to the New York Times, are euphemistically referred to as "informal settlements," because labeling them as what they really are, camps full of war refugees, is "politically sensitive." According to the Times, "The Afghan government insists that the residents should and could return to their original homes; the residents say it is too dangerous for them to do so."

The death rate for children under age five in these camps is 144 out of 1,000, according to Julie Bara of Solidarités International. The Times calls this "stunningly high even for Afghanistan, which already has the world's third highest infant mortality rate."
(snip)
But it isn't only the dire conditions in the refugee camps. By any measure, even those of the occupiers, the U.S. war and occupation has been a dismal failure – failing to liberate women, failing to improve conditions for ordinary Afghans, failing to bring about democracy, failing to stop the killing of civilians, failing to permanently oust the Taliban, failing to train a national armed forces.

Of course, that's because the U.S. occupation was never about liberation and democracy in the first place. It was about securing an imperial foothold in the region – no matter the consequence to the Afghan people. Now, as the U.S. occupation unravels, it is ordinary Afghans who are suffering the consequences as the U.S. looks in vain for a "Plan B" that doesn't exist.



Read more: http://www.rawa.org/temp/runews/2012/04/11/afghanistan-the-quagmire-of-u-s-occupation.html#ixzz1vHIiWQPE