Military convoys put civilians "at risk"

One month after a deadly car bombing in Kabul the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs offers some insight into the levels of violence in the country by interviewing one of the wounded. It is not often that we have an opportunity to look behind the headline.


KABUL, 16 June 2010 (IRIN) - Only seconds after a convoy of armoured military vehicles passed Fawad Tokhi, 35, at about 8.20am in the south of Kabul city on 18 May, he was wounded in a suicide attack.

“I was bleeding. The only thing I could do was to call my brother and tell him that I was wounded,” Tokhi told IRIN at his home in Kabul. He was seriously hit in the chest and abdomen.

Officials said the blast killed six foreign soldiers and at least 12 civilians; another 47 civilians were injured.

“I first blame foreign forces for unnecessary patrolling on city streets in busy hours of the day. Secondly, I blame the government for its inability to stop foreign forces from rambling on the city streets in their armoured cars. Thirdly, I blame the Taliban for their attacks which often kill and injure innocent people,” said Tokhi.

“I don’t understand what ISAF [International Security Assistance Force] achieves on busy streets in Kabul except creating traffic congestions and causing risks to people,” said Ahmad Wali, 19, who was injured in the same attack.

To illustrate what a magnet for violence that foreign forces have become in Afghanistan consider this.

“Foreign forces came to our village and said they want to asphalt the road but we said no,” said Shir Ahmad, a resident of Dara-e-Pachaye in Kabul’s Paghman District. “We know the road is good but we also know that an asphalted road brings ISAF patrols and with them comes suicide and roadside attacks.”

Two weeks after the attack, the New York Times reported that 30 Afghan’s had been shot to death and 80 wounded from passing convoys and at military checkpoints in the last six months.

“We have shot an amazing number of people, but to my knowledge, none has ever proven to be a threat,” said Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, who became the senior American and NATO commander in Afghanistan last year. His comments came during a recent videoconference to answer questions from troops in the field about civilian casualties.

Unpacking $1 Trillion

A video message from the Quaker youth program in Old Chatham, New York.

Directed by Sergio Rico, Trillion is a powerful film about a very large number.



Additional Resource:

What's Your Trillion Dollar Plan?
Clever interactive game from Rethink Afghanistan.

Troop levels in Afghanistan and Iraq

For the first time since the invasion of Iraq in 2003 there are now more U.S. troops in Afghanistan (94,000) than Iraq (92,000). The graph is from the Congressional Research Service document 'Boots on the Ground Reports to Congress'. Since the beginning of the Obama Administration in January 2009, the number of U.S. troops in Afghanistan has increased three-fold.

Last month I was part of a phone conference call with Afghan youth working in Bamiyan province to overcome violence in their community. I was not surprised they said it was lonely and difficult work. But I was surprised by the questions they asked, and how similar they were to the questions Iraqis have asked over the years. Why do Christians (Americans) hate us? How come nobody talks about the deaths of Afghan’s? How could Bible verses appear on bombs that were dropped in Afghanistan?

They said they were afraid that what happened in Iraq will happen to them.

Additional Resources

Don’t Extend U.S. troop withdrawal deadline
Raed Jarrar | The Progressive | 25 May 2010

Internal Peacebuilding to Build True Security
AFSC | Alternatives to War Series | Summer 2009

Take Action

Memorial Day and Milestones

Memorial Day and Milestones

On Sunday morning at 10:06 AM, the Memorial Day weekend will be punctuated with the passing of a stunning milestone. At that moment, U.S. taxpayers will have spent $1 trillion on operational expenses for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Read our op-ed in Huffington Post on what a trillion dollars means to all of us.

Click here to finish reading the newsletter.

Other Resources:

$1 Trillion Action Toolkit

Cost of War Counter


Kabul Wedding by Art Hazelwood and Juan Fuentes, part of the AFSC Afghan Memorial Mural project.

From Prayers to Paralysis

Writing from Pakistan, Josuah Brollier tells the story, and shares the insights of a young Afghan severely wounded by a US missile strike. Drawing attention to the little considered way institutions in Pakistan are helping to heal the wounds of war.

Islamabad — Through the Soviet invasion and occupation, the Afghan civil war and now the United States war and occupation, a young man named Zainullah, around 25 years of age, has seen war his whole life. But you’d never know it by his engaging smile and his relaxed countenance. Zainullah currently lives at a paraplegic center in Hayatabad, Pakistan, a suburb of Peshawar, the capital city of the North-West Frontier Province. He is originally from the Helmand province of Afghanistan, which has been one of the most intense battlegrounds during the “war on terror” launched by the United States in 2001.

To continue reading.

Additional Resources

Voices for Creative Nonviolence

Special Report: How the White House learned to love the drone

Death Squads, Collateral Murder, Cover-Ups

Dr. Zaher Wahab offers a view from Afghanistan on the impact of the war. The parallels to Iraq are striking. He has been in Kabul teaching for the last three months, and writes to the blog Dispatches from Afghanistan.

The US occupation of Afghanistan, which will enter its tenth year this fall, shows no signs of abating. In fact, both the brutal occupation and the resistance to it are intensifying. The human, financial, psychic and political costs to both countries have been enormous. More than 1,000 Americans have been killed, more than 4,000 injured, thousands suffering from various degrees of PTSD, and tens of thousands suffering from the militarization of their feelings. The war has cost the US about $270 billion so far, and is now costing the US taxpayers more than one billion dollars per week. On the Afghan side, unknown thousands of combatants and civilians have been killed, maimed, and/or are dying slow deaths. The society is impoverished, factionalized, sectarianized, brutalized, criminalized, gangsterized, traumatized, and militarized; it ranks at or near the bottom of every human development index. The country has been transformed into a hellhole with unimaginable poverty, disease, pain, and suffering.

Click here to read more.

Other Resources:

The Wounded Platoon
Frontline | 18 May 2010

U.S. launches criminal probe on soldiers in Afghanistan
Reuters | 20 May 2010

Afghan Civilian Memorial Mural Project

We are starting to receive work from the artists participating in our national mural project to remember Afghan civilian deaths. This compelling panel is from Janet Braun-Reinitz of Brooklyn, NY.