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Technology spectacles mask weaknesses

Abstract: Future U.S. wars in the Third World will involve massive use of drones to police the territory, employment of local satrap1 forces (such as

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Kunduz massacre

THE magic cut-off is revealed to be about 30 to 40. Such revealed facts tell far more than mere words. Some years ago, Human Rights Watchs Marc Garlas

Afghan Tragedy

A TACIT agreement operates between the Obama administration, the United States corporate media, most progressive U.S. liberals, and the United Nations

Terror, U.S. style

Nothing has changed for us in this new Afghanistan, said 16-year-old Seema, in early 2007, whose father was killed by a U.S. liberating bomb in Octobe

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Deadly change

THE first Afghan civilian killed by United States/North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (U.S./NATO) action in the New Year was a boy named Marjan, killed

Matrix of Death

A new dossier on the (im)precision of U.S. bombing and the (under)valuation of Afghan lives.

Understanding Barack Obama

He promises nothing other than what already is in Afghanistan: prolonged low-intensity conflict with endless death and destruction.

More stories from Afghan File

At the site of a suicide car bomb explosion in Jalalabad in Afghanistans eastern province of Nangarhar, on May 31.-RAFIQ SHIRZAD/REUTERS

An empty buffer

For the U.S., Afghanistan is a socio-economically irrelevant space to be kept empty through least-cost military means.

An Italian soldier of NATO's International Security Assistance Force near the site of a bomb explosion close to Herat airport, southwest of Kabul, Afghanistan, on December 21, 2006. The remote-controlled bomb killed four civilians and wounded six people, including a border police commander.-FRAIDOON POOYAA/AP

Relative lethality

The 21st century wars of the U.S. kill large numbers of innocent civilians relative to combatants.

Residents of an Afghan village in Helmund province in southern Afghanistan watch as U.S. soldiers search a house for members of the Taliban and Al Qaeda, on February 24.-AARON FAVILA/AP

Back to the warlords

With the remnants of Al Qaeda and the Taliban hitting at will, the Hamid Karzai government in Afghanistan is floundering.

Hamid Karzai, leader of the interim government in Afghanistan.-REUTERS TELEVISION

Testing times

The Bonn accord can be a master plan for peace as it offers Afghans three chances to establish a working government.

B.MURALIDHAR REDDY in Islamabad

Mohammad Gul carries his child past a war-damaged house in West Kabul on August 26, 2002.-DAVID LONGSTREATH/AP

Measure for measure

The bombing of Afghanistan as a reflection of 9/11 and different valuations of life.

Working on the poppy-head, the seed capsule of a poppy plant.-KONTOS YANNIS/GAMMA

The narco-politics of Afghanistan

The West's indifference towards opium cultivation in Afghanistan has ensured that narcotics, with their money-earning potential, will continue to play

ROMESH BHATTACHARJI

Mohammad Gul beside his brother-in-law Wali Khan, at the hospital.-CHARLES REX ARBOGAST/AP

The massacre at Kakarak

Of arrogance and Pentagon-speak, in the midst of chasing Mullah Omar's shadows and keeping Hamid Karzai in power.

Newly elected Afghan President Hamid Karzai addressing the Loya Jirga in Kabul.-BEHROUZ MEHRI/AFP

An Afghan transition

The Bush administration's candidate, Hamid Karzai, is the head of the Afghan government. But it has been no cake-walk.

During Operation Anaconda, U.S. soldiers on their way to an air assault on Sirkankil, Afghanistan, on March 2.-ZINN WARREN/GAMMA

War and resistance

The heavy-handed U.S. military campaign in Afghanistan proceeds on its weary course, but the military achievements have clearly fallen short of the ta

The Red Mountain range in Bamiyan that once housed two giant statues of the Buddha, on cliff faces, besides smaller structures of archaeological significance. The two big statues, dating back to the 5th or 6th century A.D., were the largest of all Buddhist statues so far attested in the world.-NOEL OLIVIER/GAMMA

Vandalised Afghanistan

The destruction of Afghanistan's cultural treasures during the period of the civil war in looting and illegal excavations has caused a huge loss of hu

OSMUND BOPEARACHCHI

At Camp X-Ray in Guantanamo Bay, U.S. soldiers take a prisoner to his cell.-GAMMA

The opacity of Camp X-Ray

The prisoners of the Fifth Afghan War at Guantanamo Bay represent yet another example of violation of international norms by the United States in its

United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan addresses the International Conference on Reconstruction Assistance to Afghanistan in Tokyo on January 21. Others, from left, are Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, Afghanistan's Interim Prime Minister Hamid Karzai and U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell.-DAVID GUTTENFELDER/AP

A revival package

The $4.5-billion aid promised by donor-states at the Tokyo Conference, though inadequate, will enable the war-ravaged Afghanistan to start the process

AMIT BARUAH in Tokyo