How many more leaked internal reports into criminal-sounding behaviour of some Australian army and special forces personnel do we need to demand the occupation troops in Afghanistan and Iraq be removed 鈥 immediately?
Afghanistan
The threat of nuclear annihilation is closer than at any time since the end of the Cold War as two heads of state use nuclear weapons as props in what looks like a fight between two adolescent boys.
On one side is a narcissistic bully, born to inherit great power and with credible reports that his personal life includes indulging in acts of sadism, whose policies in government are driven by a combination of xenophobia, ego and whim and who is threatening nuclear Armageddon if he doesn't get his way.
On the other side is North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un.
United States President Donald Trump announced that the US would continue the ongoing war in Afghanistan, which is already the longest war in US history, Democracy Now! on August 22.
The Pentagon is likely to deploy about 4000 more US troops to Afghanistan in the coming months. In recent months, the US has intensified its air war in Afghanistan. During June, the US carried out 389 airstrikes in Afghanistan 鈥 the highest monthly total in five years.
Australian special forces routinely commit war crimes in Afghanistan.
Such a conclusion is strongly suggested by hundreds of pages of secret Australian Defence Force documents leaked to the ABC, which were revealed on July 11.聽
Under President Barack Obama, the US acknowledged killing between 2867 and 3138 people in strikes in countries like聽Somalia, Yemen and Pakistan.
In the聽waning days of his presidency, Obama took some steps to聽improve聽transparency about drone strikes, including providing the total estimated death toll. However, a new report by the Columbia Law School Human Rights Clinic and the Sana鈥檃 Center for Strategic Studies says that the US聽is still lagging in providing a full accounting of its drone program.
On May 30, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull was the first of the 鈥渃oalition of the willing鈥 to declare he would support US President Donald Trump鈥檚 request for more occupying troops in Afghanistan. Sydney Stop the War Coalition issued this statement which is abridged below.
* * *
Sydney Stop the War Coalition opposes the Turnbull Coalition government鈥檚 decision to take up US President Donald Trump鈥檚 request and send more Australian troops to the quagmire in Afghanistan.
Hit and Run: The New Zealand SAS in Afghanistan & the Meaning of Honour
By Nicky Hager & Jon Stephenson
Potton &聽Burton, 2017聽
159 pages
In this well-written and powerful book, Nicky Hager and Jon Stephenson present a barrage of evidence that 鈥淣ew Zealanders and their United States allies were involved in war crimes鈥 in Afghanistan in 2010.
Afghan anti-war activist and feminist Malalai Joya sent the solidarity message below to a protest organised by Sydney Stop the War Coalition against the visit of US Vice President Mike Pence to Australia on April 29.
Joya was elected to Afghanistan鈥檚 from 2005 until early 2007. She was dismissed from her seat for denouncing the presence of and in the .
President Ashraf Ghani鈥檚 first visit to Australia prompted a sizable protest on April 3 among the Australian Hazara community amid claims of institutional discrimination against Hazaras in Afghanistan.
Numbering thousands, peaceful protesters gathered from across the country and demanded from the Afghan President equality, fair distribution of resources, and an end to governmental discrimination.
Hundreds of Afghans attended a candlelight vigil on the evening of July 27 to commemorate the horrific attack on protestors the previous weekend in Kabul, which left 80 civilians dead and 230 wounded.
Although it was not deemed worthy of front page coverage in much of the Western media, the horrific attack against a demonstration in Kabul on July 23 should be known about and condemned by the whole world.
More than 80 people from the Hazara minority were slaughtered in the terrorist attack. Their only crime was to assemble in a crowd to peacefully protest against discrimination and demand justice from the corrupt and puppet government of Ashraf Ghani and Abdullah Abdullah.
President Barack Obama, calling Afghanistan's security situation precarious, said on July 6 he would keep US soldier levels in the country at 8400 through the end of his administration. He had pledged to cut soldier numbers to 5500 by the year's end.
Obama's plan still calls for a cut in US soldier levels from the current roughly 9800.
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