Recently, Sonali Kolhatkar and I visited Afghanistan for a short ten-day trip. We visited Kabul, Herat, and Farah, and saw many of the projects of the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan, who we work with as directors of the Afghan Women’s Mission. The views of a lot of people we talked to reinforced our own analysis from the perspective of the US. I wanted to mention one item that contrasted with …

It looks like the Bush administration’s claims to have eliminated the Taliban threat in Afghanistan were a bit premature. An attack on the mayor’s office in Kandahar and a foiled car bomb in Herat represent “an increase in militant activity in the south and east” (BBC) of the country and show that the Taliban are still alive and kicking.

But that isn’t the bad news. The bad news is that even if the movement of “religio-fascists” whose …

Published on ZNet on April 10th, 2005

Zalmay Khalilzad, currently George W. Bush’s special envoy and US ambassador to Afghanistan, will be transferred as ambassador to Iraq pending Senate confirmation. Contrary to popular belief on the left, the transfer has little to do with his being a past consultant for the oil company UNOCAL. A Village Voice blog by Jarrett Murphy (“Iraq Envoy’s Got Oil On His Resume”) makes the case that mainstream reportage on Khalilzad$(Bs (Bappointment ignored …

Posted on April 2, 2005, Printed on April 14, 2005, Alternet.org

http://www.alternet.org/story/21657/

In the past two years the US media have drastically reduced their coverage of Afghanistan. According to the American Journalism Review only three news organizations–Newsweek, Associated Press and The Washington Post–have full-time reporters stationed in Kabul. What little is published focuses mostly on feel-good stories, superficial change and unopposed reportage of the Bush administration’s claims.

Take Laura Bush’s recent visit to Afghanistan. The news media immediately turned toward the still-struggling …