Nèdeem Elmahjoub's blog

As Kabul fell to the Taliban, so did Bagram prison. As a former prisoner of this place, it’s hard to describe the emotions I felt at hearing this news. The Times  describes  Bagram as “the scene of some of the darkest episodes of the US-led occupation”. But to me, it’s the scene of countless unresolved war crimes, and I’m an eyewitness. It is regarding those crimes that I gave  testimony  to the International Criminal Court, and for which the US government threatened to prosecute its members. Former Bagram and Guantanamo prisoner Moazzam Begg on what he saw Related Australian elite troops killed Afghan civilians [for practice]

When one interpreter asked me a few days ago, ‘Why is my five-year-old worth less than a dog?’ I didn’t have an answer.” I have a business idea for Farthing even Alan Sugar, the greatest Brit to ever live, would never think of it: put the dogs on ebay. As of Johnson and Patel, it is sheer hypocrisy. They have been pursuing a hostile environment policy towards refugees, restricting their entry, confining them in detention centres, etc. and now they want to show the world that they care. Britain values dogs more than Aghan people

Afghanistan 1978-2021: A brief summary

A very modest attempt by me. Oh man! Oh man! They couldn’t even liberate Afghanistan .. Oh George! Oh Barack! Why did you leave it to Biden? Oh man! Oh man! They couldn’t liberate Afghanistan .. Oh Hilary! Oh Hilary! Who would have had a laugh  Other than Bin Laden? Oh man! Oh man! Who will liberate the Afghan If not the Americaaan?* * Plural pronunciation of Americans in Arabic. —Nèdeem Mahjoub

Using ‘imperial’ and avoiding imperialism and capitalism. America isn’t ‘back’. Here’s why Related “ About 42 percent of Americans are now either unaware of the fact that their country is still fighting wars in the Greater Middle East and Africa or think that the war on terror is over. Consider that for a moment. What does it mean to be fighting wars for a country in which a near majority of the population is unaware that you’re even doing so?” “I tell my son that people die in wars because so many of us turn our backs on what’s going on in the world we live in.” Andrea Mazzarino from Cost of War Project

A good summary. But did the lights stay on?

Ben Griffin is an ex-SAS soldier who served in Afghanistan and Iraq. The speech was given at Oxford Union, England.

The Fog of the Forever War with a Laugh Track

A nation that has often defined its identity against an Other. The US will prefer a China contest to the forever wars

  How the US Military Recruited Neo-Nazis, Gang Members, and Criminals to Fight the War on Terror

I am surprised of the no extradition court rule. Prisoner for free speech

 “Collateral damage” Civilians killed in air strikes soars by 300%

  Watch for this story and compare how much coverage it will have compared to the coverage of the four people recently killed in France. “And it wasn't just that these alleged executions took place, it was the manner of impunity by which they happened. In fact, according to the report, there was an air of competitiveness within the special forces. One moment stood out in Gen Campbell's address: when he described how some junior soldiers had allegedly been coerced to shoot unarmed civilians to get their "first kill" - a practice known as "blooding". He said that weapons and radios had then been allegedly planted to support claims that the victims had been enemies killed in action.” We’ll we ever see “Je suis Afghan civilian”? Australian elite troops killed Afghan civilians [for practice]

Related The Bengal famine

France’s Afghan fundamentalist heroes

In the process of liberating other people, especially women, in a faraway country from bearded “terrorists”/“insurgents”, some of our heroic boys exercising their duty under extreme pressure make mistakes. When Muslims attack us in Paris or London, they are terrorists and Jihadis. A flood of articles, hourly updates and eye-witnesses’ accounts, repeated news items and pictures, When “our soldiers” (good Jihadis) execute civilians they act in “self-defence” and barely anyone hears about it. Did UK Special Forces execute unarmed civilians?

When the New York Times brings its support for US militarism home

Young Afghani women building ventilators from car parts

War photography by David Pratt