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RALLY AGAINST WAR!
Updated Saturday, 17th July, 2010
Join Stop the War activists to call for an end to the war on Afghanistan
Rally to mark Afghanistan's 9 years of occupation and destruction, and to demand and end to this bloody war! When: Friday 8 October Time: 5.30pm Where: Sydney Town Hall
Info: 0404 090 710
AUSTRALIAN SOLDIERS TO BE CHARGED OVER CHILDREN DEATHS
Friday, 27th August, 2010 (06:51 PM)
* ABC August 27, 2010
Charges will be laid against some Australian soldiers involved in a deadly night raid in which five children were killed in Afghanistan last year.
Early last year six Afghans were killed during an Australian Special Operations Task Group raid targeting an insurgent leader in Uruzgan province MORE
AFGHANISTAN: NATO'S HAND
Friday, 27th August, 2010 (10:42 AM)
* StopNATO August 27, 2010
The longest war in U.S. history and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s first armed conflict outside Europe, as well as its first ground war, is nearing the beginning of its tenth year.
Over 120,000 troops are serving under NATO’s International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan in addition to 30,000 under American command...
Never before have forces from so many nations [47] served under a common command in one country, one war theater or one war MORE
* SMH August 27, 2010 DENMARK REJECTS NATO's REQUEST...
Denmark has turned down a NATO request to send F-16 fighters to Afghanistan as it believes it has done enough for the international military mission...
* AP August 27, 2010 SPANIARDS RETHINK AFGHANISTAN
MADRID — The shooting death of three Spaniards at a military base in Afghanistan has prompted renewed calls for the government to declare the war on the Taliban a failure and join other coalition countries in withdrawing.
* SMH August 26, 2010 AUSTRALIA NEEDS HONEST DEBATE...
AS AUSTRALIA mourns the death of another soldier in Afghanistan the war that hardly rated a mention during the federal election campaign has finally been acknowledged to be in need of scrutiny.
ECONOMICS, NOT WAR, CAN HELP THE WOMEN OF AFGHANISTAN
Monday, 16th August, 2010 (12:18 AM)
* Rethink Afghanistan
There has been much discussion, as well as misunderstanding, of the Time magazine cover photo of the Afghan woman who had her nose cut off by the Taliban. The purported object lesson is clear: If we leave Afghanistan now, this is what will happen. ...But that is a comic-book version of Afghanistan.
The reality is even more disturbing: The repressive and misogynistic forces the picture depicts are the very ones now being bolstered by U.S. policy.MORE
PRETEXTS FOR WAR
Tuesday, 10th August, 2010 (12:02 AM)
* Anti-War.Com August 5, 2010 IRAQ: TONY BLAIR MUST BE PROSECUTED
Tony Blair must be prosecuted, not indulged like his mentor Peter Mandelson. Both have produced self-serving memoirs for which they have been paid fortunes. Blair’s will appear next month and earn him £4.6 million. Now consider Britain’s Proceeds of Crime Act. Blair conspired in and executed an unprovoked war of aggression against a defenseless country, which the Nuremberg judges in 1946 described as the "paramount war crime." This has caused, according to scholarly studies, the deaths of more than a million people...
AFGHANISTAN: CIVILIANS KILLED BY NATO
Monday, 9th August, 2010 (10:05 PM)
* Democracy Now August 6, 2010
An unknown number of civilians have been killed in a US-led NATO bombing in Afghanistan’s Nangarhar province. Afghan witnesses say the victims were in a house and a group of parked vehicles when they were struck by NATO missiles...
Witnesses say the civilian death toll could be anywhere between a dozen to thirty-two. The deaths come as the Afghan government has put the number of Afghan civilians killed in a US Marine attack in Helmand province last month at thirty-nine. MORE
IRAQ: PARAMILITARY FORCE TO REPLACE US ARMY
Saturday, 7th August, 2010 (12:53 PM)
* Democracy Now August 3, 2010
President Obama said Monday in a speech before the Disabled American Veterans national convention in Atlanta that the US military is on target to withdraw all its combat troops from Iraq by the end of August. Independent journalist Jeremy Scahill says this instead marks the beginning of a downsized and rebranded occupation that will rely heavily on private military forces.
"...Hillary Clinton, the Secretary of State, last month submitted a request to the Pentagon for an incredible beefing up of the State Department’s own paramilitary force..."MORE
* Times August 5, 2010 REQUIEM FOR A PROFOUND MISADVENTURE
There is no "victory" in Iraq, nor will there be...a war that should never have been fought, a war that by some estimates will cost $3 trillion before it's done...The idea that it was our right and responsibility to rid Iraq of a terrible dictator — after the original casus belli of weapons of mass destruction evaporated — turned out to be a neocolonialist delusion...
AFGHANISTAN: AUSTRALIA SUBSIDISES US ASSAULT OPERATIONS
Thursday, 5th August, 2010 (01:34 AM)
* Indymedia Wed August 4, 2010
The Stop the War Coalition (StWC) condemns the latest Australian government’s purchase of 18 drones (Shadow 200) and training packages worth $175 m.
Ms Marlene Obeid, spokesperson for the anti-war group, said “the drones are part of an offensive weapons system that, almost certainly, will be linked to US systems in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
“In other words, Australia will be subsidising US assault operations, which are more than likely to result in the death of more Afghan women and children.MORE
JULIAN ASSANGE: A MODERN DAY HERO
Thursday, 5th August, 2010 (12:38 AM)
* On Line Opinion Tue August 3, 2010
By Kellie Tranter
It ill behoves Mike Mullen, chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, to suggest that Julian Assange, Wikileaks, has the blood of some young soldier or of an Afghan family on his hands. He conveniently overlooks why we’re all in the bloodbath that is the war.
Rather than using emotive Shakespearean language the United States Government should look at who really wields the knife in the context of the Nuremberg Principles, the Geneva and Hague Conventions and the Geneva Protocol...MORE
* ABC July 26, 2010
Today the biggest story in Western media is the leaking of thousands of documents detailing, according to Britain's Guardian newspaper, "a devastating portrait of the failing war in Afghanistan".
The paper's report continues: "The disclosures come from more than 90,000 records of incidents and intelligence reports about the conflict obtained by the whistleblowers' website Wikileaks in one of the biggest leaks in US military history...MORE
* BEFORE YOU GO, SENATOR FAULKNER... By Kellie Tranter
Secret US military files just released by Wikileaks require questions to be asked of our government and immediate and truthful answers...
AFGHANISTAN: BIG SHOTS MEET IN KABUL
Tuesday, 20th July, 2010 (11:36 AM)
* The Guardian July 19, 2010
As the big names of world politics fly into Kabul for a conference on the future of Afghanistan, many of the capital's international residents have been fleeing in the opposite direction...
...on the fringes of the conference the hot topic is a subject that is barely mentioned in the draft and until recently eschewed by the US administration; making peace with the Taliban...
At an evening reception a few days before the conference, a senior European diplomat said glumly: "I cannot think of a single reason to die for Afghanistan."MORE
* The National July 19, 2010 CLINTON PUMPS MILLIONS TO SECURE PAKISTAN SUPPORT
Pakistan’s economy has been in crisis since December 2007...Repayment of Pakistan’s foreign debt and the mounting cost of anti-militant operations have drastically reduced spending on development since July 2009, and economic growth has, in real terms, ground to a halt...
Yousaf Raza Gilani, the Pakistani prime minister, on Sunday told Mrs Clinton that delays in direct US compensation for Pakistan’s anti-militant operations in the tribal regions had placed further pressure...
* ABC July 19, 2010 WILL BILLIONS TURN THE TIDE IN AFGHANISTAN?
As Americans grow increasingly skeptical about the war, their top diplomat arrived in the Afghan capital today under unprecedented security, hoping to help lead a major international conference that will turn over greater control of the future of Afghanistan to its own, struggling government...
* FARS News Agency July 19, 2010 AFGHANISTAN NEW VIETNAM FOR US
Former Director of Pakistan's Military Intelligence Organization General Hamid Gol said that the US forces in Afghanistan are stuck in the same quagmire they were entangled with in the Vietnam war...
AFGHANISTAN: GILLARD'S WAR
Friday, 16th July, 2010 (11:34 PM)
* SMH July 15, 2010
By Kellie Tranter
Prime Minister Julia Gillard's recent public appeal to the electorate to support the war in Afghanistan reveals a government concerned about what is becoming an increasingly awkward election issue. If she can't put a lid on it now, the natives will ask questions that our politicians have avoided answering for almost a decade.
"We are there because our national security is at stake,'' says Gillard. But the public is asking why our young soldiers are still there if al-Qaeda and Osama bin Laden are no longer operating in Afghanistan MORE
IRAQ: BRADLEY MANNING CHARGED WITH LEAKING IRAQ KILLINGS VIDEO
Saturday, 10th July, 2010 (02:43 PM)
* Guardian July 6, 2010
Private Bradley Manning, who had a top-secret security clearance, has been held in military custody in Kuwait since his arrest in Iraq in May over the video, which caused great embarrassment to the US military establishment. It showed an air strike that killed a dozen people, including two Iraqis working for Reuters news agency. The air crew is heard falsely claiming to have encountered a firefight in Baghdad and then laughing at the dead. WikiLeaks gave the video the title Collateral Murder.MORE
THE BUSINESS OF UNWINNABLE WAR
Friday, 9th July, 2010 (12:47 PM)
* ABC July 9, 2010
By Kelly Tranter
Senator Faulkner probably won't personally confirm or deny recent speculation that he harbours doubts about the success or otherwise of the war in Afghanistan, but he doesn't have to. Notwithstanding the denial by his office that he has "moral doubts", if informed colleagues sense it, then he probably does.
It's a doubt that Senator Faulkner shares with most of the Australian population, along with most of the Dutch, Germans, Canadians, New Zealanders and now the French.
Although he was prodded into a prompt retraction, just last week Republican Party leader Michael Steele suggested that the war in Afghanistan couldn't be "won". MORE
* StWC July 10, 2010 LETTER TO GILLARD
We are concerned with the growing threat of a new United States-Israel strike against the people of Iran and are writing to ask you to distance your government from any measure that could lead to an attack on Iran.
IRAN: US SANCTIONS ACT OF WAR
Wednesday, 7th July, 2010 (12:48 AM)
* Information Clearing House July 4, 2010
July 04, 2010 "Information Clearing House" -- When the UN refused to agree to the severe sanctions that the U.S. wanted, Obama responded with typical Bush flair and went solo. The new U.S. sanctions against Iran — signed into law by Obama on July 1st — are an unmistakable act of war.
If fully enforced, Iran’s economy will be potentially destroyed. MORE
* Granma July 1, 2010 SANCTIONS 'STRIKE AT THE HEART' OF IRAN
The United States and the Western powers are specifically accusing Iran of attempting to enrich a sufficient quantity of uranium for nuclear bombs, but the authorities in Tehran have rejected that affirmation and maintain that the country’s nuclear program has purely peaceful objectives.
* ISNA July 6, 2010
TEHRAN (ISNA)-An Iranian influential lawmaker Alaeddin Boroujerdi stressed foreign troops' exit from Afghanistan is the only way for lasting security and stability in the country.
In a meeting with Afghanistan Deputy Foreign Minister Eklil Ahmad Hakimi in Tehran Monday evening, Boroujerdi emphasized foreign forces should hand over responsibility of managing the country to Afghan people adding that, "setting a timetable for foreign troops' withdrawal from Afghanistan is a primary step for the goal." MORE
Below are
additional sources of news and analysis from a variety
of sources. The StWC is not responsible for any
of the content - our aim is to provide as much information
as we can.
Next
StWC Meeting:
TBA
About the Coalition
MEETING
Join Stop the War activists to call for an end to the war on Afghanistan
* ABC August 27, 2010
* StopNATO August 27, 2010
* Rethink Afghanistan
* Anti-War.Com August 5, 2010
* Democracy Now August 6, 2010
* Democracy Now August 3, 2010
* Indymedia Wed August 4, 2010
* On Line Opinion Tue August 3, 2010
* ABC July 26, 2010
* The Guardian July 19, 2010
* SMH July 15, 2010
* Guardian July 6, 2010
* ABC July 9, 2010
* Information Clearing House July 4, 2010
