afghanistan

How about some non-US spin on General Petraeus leaving Iraq? Ajazeera is a good place to start. Here’s a video discussed by Juan Cole this morning. Instead of the happy talk of victory that the US media would spin, Juan Cole quotes a more realistic statement by Gen. Petraeus himself:

‘ In a telephone interview with The Associated Press on Sunday, Petraeus said experience in Iraq shows it will take political and economic progress as well as military action to tackle increased violence in Afghanistan. “You don’t kill or capture your way out of an industrial strength insurgency,” he said.’

Click on the YouTube and watch the heavies! There’s quite a bunch there. Also, what sounds to Juan Cole (and me) like realistic reporting. Worth a three minute watch.

What is the story on Dr Aafia Siddiqui, the MIT grad who may have been imprisoned at Bagram, that notorious American detention facility in Afghanistan, for the past five years?

Siddiqui is a 36-year old Pakistani woman who when young was sent to America by her father, along with her two siblings, for education. But in 2003 while she was living in Karachi, Pakistan, with her parents and three children she suddenly disappeared. She was arrested on July 17 of this year on false charges, according to her lawyer, Elaine Whitfield Sharp, who says she has proof that Siddiqui was being held at Bagram Air Base for the past five years.

Sharp also says Siddiqui appears traumatized, is very passive, and is “like a person who has been excessively institutionalized.” I got this information from this NPR article. Eric Alterman has further details and links here. Particularly interesting is the investigation by Tim Bella at ProPublica, Mystery Surrounds Case of Terror Suspect. Here is a 3-minute video, The Case Against Aafia Siddiqui, from Aug 6, 2008, on AlJazeera:

I doubt there is anything like this in the American media.

One of my morning reads to capture the news and find out what’s going on in the world has always been Josh Marshall of Talking Points Memo. He’s got a great post this morning on the hysteria of the neocons over the Russian response to Georgian troops invading Ossetia. Here’s the closing paragraph of this short four paragraph read:

Watching the Bennetts and the Krauthammers get all jazzed up about Georgia as the new Afghanistan, with all the painfully awkward nostalgia and excitement of an 80s era Gilligan’s Island reunion flick is entertaining. But much less so when you realize these jokers might be running the government in six months.

Of course McCain is right in there with the rest of them, championing them in fact and sending his surrogates to Georgia. Well, we’ll see whether the whole thing doesn’t blow over in a couple weeks. I’ll come back here then with an update!