rabble.ca blogs - Dave.Markland

Syria: A primer

Dave.Markland — Mon, 09 May 2011 20:30:17 -0400

The uprising in Bashar al-Assad's Syria, now over seven weeks old, reached a turning point on Monday, April 25 when Syrian army units including tanks entered the rebellious town of Dera'a in the country's south. The operation, which New York Times correspondent Anthony Shadid writes "seemed to mark a decisive turn," marked the start of a determined nation-wide crackdown on protests that have seen deaths numbering over 500, with many hundreds more arrested and detained. [1]

Afghans don't trust Canadian forces

Dave.Markland — Wed, 13 Oct 2010 02:45:19 -0400

Canadian journalist Brian Hutchinson has reported from Afghanistan on a number of occasions since 2006. On returning recently to the country, he penned an interesting assessment of the situation on the ground:

The counterinsurgency is failing in the hinterland. Rural Afghans are still wary of foreign troops, even after almost nine years of intervention. ...

The situation is worst in rural Kandahar, where Canadian soldiers have operated since early 2006 and where they have never been made to feel welcome. Coalition soldiers no longer speak of winning local “hearts and minds.”

Kandaharis are in “self-survival mode,” a senior Canadian officer serving in Kandahar told me recently.

Afghan protesters burn NATO base

Dave.Markland — Wed, 15 Sep 2010 18:48:16 -0400

Over the past several days, protests in Afghanistan reportedly stemming from threats to burn copies of the Koran in the U.S. have met with armed police reactions which have resulted in injuries and at least four deaths. In the latest protest (Sept 15), Reuters reports that "thousands" of Afghans gathered in Kabul to denounce the United States and that such demonstrations are putting the upcoming Afghan elections in jeopardy.

Secret 'kill team' killed civilians for sport

Dave.Markland — Fri, 10 Sep 2010 21:33:19 -0400

This past spring, revelations surfaced of war crimes committed by soldiers based out of Fort Hood in Washington State. Details have been somewhat sketchy until now. The Guardian's Chris McGreal reports from Washington on the latest revelations:

US soldiers 'killed Afghan civilians for sport and collected fingers as trophies'

SEPTEMBER 9 - Twelve American soldiers face charges over a secret "kill team" that allegedly blew up and shot Afghan civilians at random and collected their fingers as trophies.

The Afghan anti-war movement grows

Dave.Markland — Sat, 07 Aug 2010 05:49:06 -0400

Coverage of Afghanistan's burgeoning anti-war movement is sadly quite scarce, though we have seen in this space some of the more interesting reporting (see here for example). Lately, however, there have been developments which shed some interesting light on the (mostly) non-violent Afghan anti-war movement.

Petraeus' first move: Proxy forces

Dave.Markland — Mon, 02 Aug 2010 15:52:37 -0400

Longtime readers of this blog may remember that a couple of years ago, I was regularly running long compilations of civilian deaths at the hands of foreign forces (see, for example, here and here). Deadly incidents occurred every few days for months on end. More than once did the tally of civilians killed by western troops exceed that of civilians killed by the Taliban.

Your guide to WikiLeaks' Afghan war logs

Dave.Markland — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 13:08:46 -0400

On Monday, as most readers are probably aware, WikiLeaks released an enormous trove of U.S. military reports from Afghanistan. First, the local angle: There is some Canadian content, though very little. One incident report claims that an air attack by friendly forces killed four Canadian troops on September 3, 2006 during Operation Medusa. At the time, those deaths were officially reported to be caused by Taliban fire, and indeed there is a small amount of literature describing those soldiers' last moments. The Canadian military denies the report.

The Taliban's counter-surge

Dave.Markland — Sun, 20 Jun 2010 15:08:09 -0400

With Obama's troop surge now half a year old, we can begin to see its effects on the Afghan Taliban. A couple of items in this week's news reveal a bolstered, rather than cowed, insurgency.

From the CBC:

A dramatic increase in the number of homemade bomb attacks is part of an "alarming trend" in Afghanistan, a UN report released Saturday said.

The report to the UN Security Council said bombings and assassinations have soared in the past four months amid ramped-up military operations in the Taliban-dominated south.

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U.S. troops kill Afghan civilians 'chosen randomly'

Dave.Markland — Sun, 06 Jun 2010 20:04:02 -0400

One American soldier based out of Fort Lewis in Washington state has been arrested while others are under investigation for the alleged murder of civilians in Kandahar province earlier this year. All the soldiers are with the U.S. Army's 5th Stryker Brigade, which deployed to Kandahar in July of 2009. The unit suffered a large number of casualties, which observers have seen as a catalyst for anger which resulted in the alleged outrage.

Pentagon correspondent Tom Bowman reports on some of the details for NPR's All Things Considered:
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Kandahar hostile to foreign troops

Dave.Markland — Fri, 04 Jun 2010 21:54:06 -0400

One of the frequently recurring themes of this blog has been the unreported current of Afghan public opinion which sees the NATO/US mission in their country as an unwanted occupation. This current is undoubtedly substantial and may, as we've seen, constitute the majority view, at least in some regions of the country (see here, for example).
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