Tag: afghanistan

Afghanistan watchdog accuses State Department of ‘bizarre’ attempt to censor embarrassing information

State Department officials attempted to censor watchdog reports on U.S. efforts in Afghanistan as Taliban militants swept across the country, according to a top oversight official.

“Some of the requests were bizarre, to say the least,” Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction John Ropko said Friday. “State requested we redact Ashraf Ghani’s name from our reports. While I’m sure the former president may wish to be excised from the annals of history, I don’t believe he faces any threats simply from being referenced by SIGAR.”

The requests extended a pattern of information suppression that the auditor described as “outrageous” and “offensive.” The habit of hiding embarrassing information damaged public debates about the conduct of the war and set the stage for the tragic chaos of the final evacuation from Kabul’s international airport.

“In my opinion, the full picture of what happened in August, and all the warning signs that could have predicted the outcome, will only be revealed if the information that the departments of Defense and State have already restricted from public release is made available,” Ropko said in his prepared remarks. “But as SIGAR has experienced all too often in the past, good intentions for transparency by senior leaders are frequently thwarted by bureaucratic inertia or fear of the public knowing the truth.”

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Cool “Afghanistan Withdrawal”, Bro

The US government is reportedly close to securing a deal with Pakistan that will ensure its ability to continue military and intelligence operations in Afghanistan, the nation where the Biden administration proudly “ended” a decades-long war.

“The Biden administration has told lawmakers that the US is nearing a formalized agreement with Pakistan for use of its airspace to conduct military and intelligence operations in Afghanistan, according to three sources familiar with the details of a classified briefing with members of Congress that took place on Friday morning,” reads a new report from CNN.

“The briefing comes as the White House is still trying to ensure that it can carry out counterterrorism operations against ISIS-K and other adversaries in Afghanistan now that there is no longer a US presence on the ground for the first time in two decades after the NATO withdrawal from the country,” the report reads.

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Taliban Says US Will Provide Humanitarian Aid to Afghanistan

The U.S. has agreed to provide humanitarian aid to a desperately poor Afghanistan on the brink of an economic disaster, while refusing to give political recognition to the country’s new Taliban rulers, the Taliban said Sunday.

The statement came at the end of the first direct talks between the former foes since the chaotic withdrawal of U.S. troops at the end of August.

There was no immediate comment from the U.S. on the weekend meeting.

The Taliban said the talks held in Doha, Qatar, “went well,” with Washington freeing up humanitarian aid to Afghanistan after agreeing not to link such assistance to formal recognition of the Taliban.

The United States made it clear that the talks were in no way a preamble to recognition of the Taliban, who swept into power Aug. 15 after the U.S.-allied government collapsed.

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Victims “Stunned” After International Court Drops Probe Into US War Crimes In Afghanistan

The International Criminal Court (ICC) prosecutor is seeking approval to resume an investigation into alleged war crimes in Afghanistan but will “deprioritize” investigating suspected crimes by the US and its allies.

Karim Khan, who took over as ICC prosecutor in June, said he would focus on Taliban and ISIS-K, citing recent allegations. ISIS-K took credit for the August 26th suicide attack at the Kabul airport that killed over 100 Afghan civilians and 13 US troops.

Khan’s reasoning is that the ICC has limited resources, and the Taliban and ISIS-K are responsible for more recent alleged crimes. But the last known US airstrike in Afghanistan took place on August 29th, and it killed 10 civilians, including seven children.

According to Al Jazeera: 

A lawyer for alleged victims of US torture in Afghanistan was “stunned” after Khan announced he would “deprioritize” the investigation into American forces, a probe that has long enraged Washington.

There were other instances in the final weeks of the US war in Afghanistan of civilians being killed by US airstrikes. In early August, US airstrikes in Lashkar Gah killed destroyed a health clinic and a school, killing at least 20 civilians.

In 2020, the ICC moved forward with an investigation into alleged US war crimes in Afghanistan. The Trump administration reacted by slapping sanctions on ICC officials, which were lifted by the Biden administration in April. The investigation was on hold as the now-defunct US-backed Afghan government was promising to do the investigation on its own.

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The Other Shoe Drops: Biden Admin Announces Millions in Aid to Afghanistan

The Biden administration has just announced they will be cutting a check for $64 million in “humanitarian aid” to Afghanistan through USAID and Samantha Power.

Supposedly, this aid will go through the UN and NGOs, not through the “government”/Taliban or whoever is currently in control. Here’s Secretary of State Antony Blinken talking about it during his hearing on Zoom with Congress today.

Sorry, but I don’t trust the UN, and who knows who is in charge of some of the NGOs, so even if the money went to those folks, that it wouldn’t end up in the pockets of the Taliban, by force or by design.

Rep. Scott Perry (R-PA) questioned Blinken on this earlier today, making the point that they can’t guarantee where that money is going–  just like they gave aid to Pakistan while that country was helping the Taliban.

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Biden May Have Droned Innocent Family in Kabul; Possible War Crime

The New York Times published the results of an investigation on Friday that suggests the Biden administration targeted an innocent man who worked for a U.S. organization in a drone strike that killed several civilians. If true, the airstrike could constitute a violation of international law governing such targeted killings in wartime — in other words, a war crime.

The airstrike, which took place on August 29, was presented by the Biden administration as an attack on a potential ISIS-K terrorist who had been driving an explosive-laden vehicle that was to be detonated at the international airport in Kabul. It was the second such strike, following one on Aug. 28 in Nangarhar province against suspected Islamic State terrorists.

The Times report suggests that the U.S. killed “the wrong person” in a report accompanied by security camera footage that shows the target, Zemari Ahmadi, filling water canisters for his family that the military may have mistaken for explosives.

Astonishingly, the Times reports that “[m]ilitary officials said they did not know the identity of the car’s driver when the drone fired.” But in the wake of an August 26 suicide bombing that killed 13 U.S. servicemembers as well as scores of Afghan civilians, they believed that he posed an imminent danger based on “how they interpreted his activities that day.”

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Americans turned away from Virginia hospitals over Afghan evacuees

A massive influx of Afghan evacuees strained Northern Virginia hospitals so much this week that American citizens were being turned away.

A hospital near Dulles Expo Center has been running out of beds, forcing the facility to turn away non-Afghan patients who didn’t need critical care, according to The Washington Post. The overwhelmed hospital system prompted a regional emergency response group to monitor the hospitals after one became so packed with patients that federal officials lost track of a number of Afghans receiving medical care, including a month-old child suffering from a possibly life-threatening condition.

Kristin Nickerson, executive director of the Northern Virginia Emergency Response System, said the child was later located in one of the hospitals. Nickerson, who also directs the Northern Virginia Hospital Alliance, confirmed that another hospital was forced to turn away American patients.

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