Afghanistan

Tony Iltis, Green Left Weekly
26 February 2010 -- The Dutch government collapsed on February 20 as a result of growing popular opposition to Dutch participation in the US-led war in Afghanistan.
The Labour Party — the junior partner in the ruling coalition — withdrew after Christian Democrat Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende agreed to a US request to prolong the deployment of the 2000 Dutch soldiers in Afghanistan.

Tony Iltis, Green Left Weekly
19 February 2010 -- On February 13, 15,000 occupying troops from the US, Canada, Britain, Denmark, Estonia and the Afghan puppet state launched the Operation Moshtarak military offensive on Helmand province.
Its aim was to clear the area of brutal fundamentalist Taliban fighters and “secure” it for the rule of the brutal, fundamentalist and corrupt puppet government of President Hamid Karzai.

Stuart Munckton, Green Left Weekly
Children are the biggest victims of the war in Afghanistan, a January 6 AFP article said. It quoted an Afghanistan Rights Monitor (ARM) report, which said more than 1050 people under 18 years of age were killed in 2009 alone.
“At least three children were killed in war-related incidents every day in 2009 and many others suffered in diverse but mostly unreported ways”, ARM director Ajmal Samadi said.

Alex Harrison, Green Left Weekly

US officials in Afghanistan have unveiled a “new” detention facility within the US military-run Bagram Airbase called the Detention Facility in Parwan (DFP).
Despite the new label, and a slight shift in location, the new detention facility will house even more detainees than Guantanamo Bay. It will continue to hold them in conditions contrary to international human rights law.

A February 22, 2009n quqnoos.com report said that an occupation forces investigation team confirms killing 13 non-combatants in a US-led air strike in the west of Afghanistan, the previous week.
The US military officials have confirmed the death of more than a dozen of civilians in an air assault in the western province of Herat, a US forces statement declared.

According to a February 21, 2009 report on RAWA News, the US Justice Department under the Obama Administration has declared that some 600 "enemy combatants" held at Bagram air base have no constitutional rights and so cannot challenge their detention in US courts.
Human rights groups had hoped Mr Obama would take a different stance to that of the former Bush administration.

By Tony Iltis
Five children were shot dead by Australian troops on February 12, near the village of Sarmorghab in Oruzgan province. A February 13 Australian defence department statement admitted the children, and an undisclosed number of other civilians, were killed, along with a “suspected insurgent”.

By Haider Rizvi
Despite the heavy military presence of the United States and other Western powers, Afghanistan remains the world's largest illicit producer of opium, according to a new study released by experts who monitor the worldwide trade in narcotics on behalf of the United Nations.

Afghan officials let drug traffickers operate with impunity and those who do target the opium trade risk their lives, the report said. Last year, 78 officials trying to eradicate opium crops were killed, six times the toll in 2007.

By Pip Hinman
On February 13,2009, Australian troops killed five children and injured at least two other adult civilians in a night-time “operation” in Aghanistan’s southern Oruzgan province. This is not the first time Australian occupation troops have killed civilians. In January 2009, seven women and two children were also killed in a raid involving Australian special forces.
The Australian Defence Forces have announced yet another inquiry into these deaths. But if the February 13 doorstop interview with Lieutenant General Mark Evans (published on the Department of Defence website) is anything to go by, we will never really find out what happened. “Our rules of engagement are strict and we work at all levels to ensure that civilian casualties do not occur.”

November 15, 2008
It's all too often that the US military accepts civilian casualties as a necessary evil. An internal Air Force report describes its excessively violent methods as well as how officials have been trying to placate surviving family members with money.
The wedding ceremony was winding down. The bride said goodbye to her family in the small village of Wech Baghtu in Afghanistan's troubled southern Kandahar Province. It was Monday, Nov. 3.