Tag - afghanistan

 
 

AFGHANISTAN

Japan Times
WORLD / Politics
Mar 30, 2014
Afghanistan at crossroads as Karzai era ends
Amid the dust and traffic of today's Kabul, three things remain almost as they were a decade or so ago. In winter, and when the wind clears the smog that is a side effect of years of economic boom, the blue sky above the snowcapped peaks that ring the city is as impressive as ever. Then there is the Arg, the sprawling palace at the city's center and the apparently calm eye of a turbulent storm of a country. The complex is home to the third element that has remained constant since the end of the Taliban's grim regime in 2001: Hamid Karzai, now in his 13th year of power.
Japan Times
LIFE
Mar 29, 2014
Marcus Luttrell: a 21st-century war hero
Shake the hand of Marcus Luttrell, and there's no mistaking the grip of someone who spent many a year holding a weapon. A former U.S. Navy SEAL, Luttrell is your 21st-century war hero, with a book and movie deal relating his near-fatal experiences in Afghanistan. He was in Tokyo recently to promote "Lone Survivor," the movie of his saga that stars Mark Wahlberg. Yet he's also a plain-spoken Texan with little regard for the trappings of celebrity, a man with an intensity in his gaze that lingers from his wartime days.
COMMENTARY
Feb 20, 2014
Legacy of carnage and ruin
This is probably, but not certainly, the year that sees the end to the United States' three-decades-long effort to establish permanent American strategic bases in the Muslim Middle East and in Muslim Asia.
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 14, 2014
India's shambolic Afghan policy
India stands at a crossroads where it remains keen to preserve its interests in Afghanistan but has refused to step up its role as a regional security provider.
Japan Times
WORLD
Dec 18, 2013
U.S. considers military trial for Russian detainee
The Obama administration is actively considering the use of a military commission in the United States to try a Russian who was captured fighting with the Taliban several years ago and has been held by the U.S. military at a detention facility near Bagram Air Field in Afghanistan, former and current U.S. officials said.
EDITORIALS
Dec 10, 2013
Karzai balks on a deal
Afghan President Hamid Karzai is playing a dangerous game. His term in office expires next April, yet he is balking on a security deal with the U.S. to try to preserve his political leverage.
Japan Times
JAPAN / CHARITY DRIVE 2013
Dec 5, 2013
NICCO driven to continue Afghan aid
Members of the Kyoto-based nonprofit organization Nippon International Cooperation for Community Development (NICCO) defied danger and entered Afghanistan as soon as the brutal Taliban government had fallen. They have since continued their difficult humanitarian support activities for more than 10 years.
COMMENTARY / World
Nov 29, 2013
Why does the U.S. put up with Karzai's chutzpah?
With its guns and money, the U.S. has suspended the feuds of Afghanistan. When the Americans truly pack up their gear, the hard truth of that country will win out.
COMMENTARY / World
Nov 29, 2013
Obama's risky Afghan gambit
The Obama administration's decision to conduct U.S. training and counterterrorism operations in Afghanistan through 2024 means virtually an indefinite American troop presence there.
Japan Times
WORLD
Nov 29, 2013
Karzai says U.S. drone strike killed 2-year-old
Afghan President Hamid Karzai accused the United States of launching a drone strike that killed a 2-year-old child Thursday and vowed to not sign a long-term security agreement if similar attacks continue.
Japan Times
WORLD / Politics
Nov 24, 2013
Afghan president holds firm on delaying security deal with U.S.
Afghan President Hamid Karzai will continue to defy U.S. threats to walk away from a security agreement between the two countries and plans to reiterate in a speech to a grand council later Sunday that he will not sign it before spring, his spokesman said.
WORLD
Nov 9, 2013
Afghanistan to free 80% of high-security detainees, Pentagon says
The Afghan government has moved to release 80 percent of the high-security detainees who were handed over this year by the U.S. military and evaluated by an Afghan review panel, according to a Defense Department report released Friday.
Japan Times
WORLD
Nov 4, 2013
As U.S. withdraws from Afghanistan, poppy trade it spent billions fighting still flourishes
The United States is withdrawing troops from Afghanistan having lost its battle against the country's narcotics industry, marking one of the starkest failures of the 2009 strategy the Obama administration pursued in an effort to turn around the war.
COMMENTARY / World
Nov 3, 2013
Can America's military learn from its mistakes?
After the Vietnam War, the U.S. Army soberly examined where it had fallen short. No such intensive reviews appear to be under way today after a decade of war in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Japan Times
WORLD
Oct 23, 2013
U.S. drawdown in Afghanistan sees world's biggest garage sale
The armored trucks, televisions, ice cream scoops and nearly everything else shipped to Afghanistan for the U.S. war against the Taliban are now part of the world's biggest garage sale: Every week, as the American troop drawdown accelerates, the U.S. is selling 5.4 million to 6.4 million kg of its equipment on the Afghan market.
Japan Times
WORLD
Oct 13, 2013
Medal of Honor seen as vindication for war hero
Four years after he survived a brutal firefight in a remote Afghanistan valley that claimed the lives of five Americans, retired U.S. Army Capt. William Swenson will be hailed as a hero at the White House on Tuesday.
Japan Times
WORLD
Oct 13, 2013
Cleanup at nation's war cemetery stirs anger, grief
Elizabeth Belle walked toward the grave of her son carrying a canvas bag full of miniature pumpkins, silk leaves and other decorations for his headstone. Then she noticed the changes. Section 60 of Arlington National Cemetery, where more than 800 Iraq and Afghanistan war dead are buried, had been stripped bare. The photographs of young dead soldiers were gone. The balloons, too, and love letters, the sonograms and worry stones, the crosses and coins.
ASIA PACIFIC
Oct 11, 2013
U.S. 'forcibly' took custody of militant leader, Afghans say
The United States recently seized a senior Pakistani Taliban commander in eastern Afghanistan, snatching him from the custody of Afghan intelligence operatives who had spent months trying to recruit him as an interlocutor for peace talks, Afghan government officials charged Thursday.
Japan Times
WORLD
Oct 1, 2013
U.S. Marine generals fired for Afghan security lapses
The commandant of the Marine Corps on Monday took the extraordinary step of firing two generals for not adequately protecting a giant base in southern Afghanistan that Taliban fighters stormed last year, resulting in the deaths of two marines and the destruction of a half a dozen U.S. fighter jets.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Sep 12, 2013
Kin of 9/11 victim calls for rethink on violence
Family members of Japanese killed in the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks marked the 12th anniversary Wednesday at a ceremony in New York, with one expressing concern about the implications of a possible U.S. attack on Syria and calling for ending the cycle of hatred and retribution.

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