Afghan Divide - regular coverage from the ground of the war-torn country by Afghan journalists for an international audience

IPS investigative series on local Afghans who have been abandoned or poorly treated by a complex web of U.S. contractors, their insurance companies, and their military counterparts despite years of service risking life and limb to help the U.S. military in the ongoing war in Afghanistan.

Mission Essential, Translators Expendable

Military Translators Risk Low Pay, Death

Pratap Chatterjee’s
report for CorpWatch

AFGHANISTAN
Not Much Good News for the Media
By Ashfaq Yusufzai
PESHAWAR, Pakistan - Good news has become harder to come by these days in Afghanistan, especially as the war-ravaged country gears up for the parliamentary election scheduled on Sep. 18.
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Billion Dollar Audit Missed by Pentagon Watchdog
By Pratap Chatterjee*
WASHINGTON - Military auditors failed to complete an audit of the business systems of an Ohio- based company - Mission Essential Personnel - even though it had billed for one billion dollars worth of work largely in Afghanistan over the last four years.
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US-MIDEAST
Light At End of Tunnel Elusive, Despite Obama’s Efforts
Analysis by Jim Lobe
WASHINGTON - President Barack Obama will try this week to underline his progress in extricating the United States from the morass his predecessor's "global war on terror" in the Greater Middle East.
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Media Didn’t Buy Petraeus Command’s Story of Low Taliban Morale
By Gareth Porter*
WASHINGTON - In an effort to introduce a story of "progress" into media coverage, Gen. David Petraeus’s command claimed last week that the Taliban is suffering from reduced morale in Marjah and elsewhere, despite evidence that the population of Marjah still believes the Taliban controls that district.
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AFGHANISTAN
Ouster of Contractors Throws U.S. Strategy in Doubt
By William Fisher
NEW YORK - Charging that U.S. private security contractors are "mafia- like groups" being financed by U.S. taxpayers to carry out "terrorist activities" with the support of the U.S. government, Afghan President Hamid Karzai has ordered a four- month phaseout of all private security companies in his embattled country.
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AFGHANISTAN
Task Force 42 and Task Force 121, the Other Secret Killers – Part 3
By Pratap Chatterjee*
WASHINGTON - When Wikileaks, a whistleblower website, released 76,000 incident reports from the U.S. war in Afghanistan, the exploits of a secret military "capture/kill" team called Task Force 373 was revealed for the first time.
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AFGHANISTAN
Task Force 373, the Secret Killers – Part 2
By Pratap Chatterjee*
WASHINGTON - When Danny Hall and Gordon Phillips, the civilian and military directors of the U.S. provincial reconstruction team in Nangahar Province, Afghanistan arrived for a meeting with Gul Agha Sherzai, the local governor, in mid-June 2007, they knew that they had a lot of apologising to do.
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AFGHANISTAN
Task Force 373, the Secret Killers – Part 1
By Pratap Chatterjee*
WASHINGTON - "Find, fix, finish, and follow-up" - also known as F4 - is the way the Pentagon describes the mission of secret military teams in Afghanistan which have been given a mandate to pursue alleged members of the Taliban or al Qaeda wherever they may be found. Some call these "manhunting" operations and the units assigned to them "capture/kill" teams.
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US
Standing Up for Homeless Vets at Stand Downs
By Aaron Glantz*
PLEASANTON, California - More than 400 homeless veterans from across northern California relaxed in comfort at the Alameda County Fairgrounds in Pleasanton.
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Despite Iraq Withdrawal, Greater Mideast Not Looking Good
Analysis by Jim Lobe*
WASHINGTON - While President Barack Obama Monday touted the continuing U.S. military withdrawal from Iraq as a key marker in the success of his regional policies, the latest news from the Greater Middle East, as well as a new public opinion survey, is far less encouraging.
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Pakistan Poll Finds Widespread Disillusionment
By Eli Clifton*
WASHINGTON - The recent Wikileaks dump of war-related documents has brought little new to the debate over Washington's ongoing military involvement in Afghanistan, but allegations that Pakistan's intelligence services are aiding the Taliban has brought renewed attention to U.S. concerns over its reliance on Islamabad in battling Taliban and al Qaeda forces in Afghanistan.
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Obama's Afghanistan Strategy Increasingly Under Siege
Analysis by Jim Lobe*
WASHINGTON - Monday's release by WikiLeaks of tens of thousands of classified documents detailing the travails of the U.S. military in Afghanistan and Pakistan's secret support for the Taliban from 2004 through 2009 comes amid a growing crisis of confidence here in the nearly nine-year-old war.
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Leaked Reports Make Afghan War Policy More Vulnerable
Analysis by Gareth Porter*
WASHINGTON - The 92,000 reports on the war in Afghanistan made public by the whistleblower organisation WikiLeaks, and reported Monday by the Guardian, The New York Times and Der Spiegel, offer no major revelations that are entirely new, as did the Pentagon Papers to which they are inevitably being compared.
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After working to strengthen independent media in Afghanistan for three years, IPS has teamed up with The Killid Group (TKG) and Pajhwok Afghan News (PAN) in 2007 to provide regular coverage from the ground of the war-torn country by Afghan journalists for an international audience. The partnership is a continuation of IPS's commitment to support local Afghan media, which has emerged as a platform for both debate and dissemination among the general public of diverse ideas, views and concerns about the country's past, present and future. And enhance pluralistic democracy by giving voice to Afghan citizens and civil society.