Longform’s Guide to the Best War Stories of 2011
a look back… From Iraq to Afghanistan to Libya, amazing stories from the world’s battlefields.
DAR_AN
This is a tumblelog, kinda like a blog but with short-form, mixed-media posts with stuff I like. Scroll down a bit to start reading, or a bit more to read more about me.
Afghan commanders show new defiance in dealings with Americans
By Kevin Sieff, Updated: Friday, May 11, 2:30 PM
KABUL —Afghan commanders have refused more than a dozen times within the past two months to act on U.S. intelligence regarding high-level insurgents, arguing that night-time operations to target the men would result in civilian casualties, Afghan officials say.
The defiance highlights the shift underway in Afghanistan as Afghan commanders make use of their newfound power to veto operations proposed by their NATO counterparts.
Afghanistan no longer worst place for mothers: report
By Amie Ferris-Rotman
KABUL | Tue May 8, 2012 10:45am EDT
(Reuters) - Better healthcare and more girls attending school have knocked Afghanistan from its position as the worst place on earth to be a mother, Save the Children said in a major report on Tuesday, but stressed the precarious nature of any gains.
“More mothers are surviving and fewer children are dying and this is something we need to be celebrating,” said Rachel Maranto, Advocacy and Mobilisation senior Manager at Save the Children in Kabul.
Women walk back to Feroz Bahar, a village near Yakawlang district in Bamiyan province. Photo: Lorenzo Tugnoli
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Reblogged from Razistan
Hajji Saheb, the village elder of Ghorian District, Herat Province, was responsible for sentencing a 16-year-old woman to stoning. Photo: Javier Manzano
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Reblogged from Razistan
secret-us-program-releases-high-level-insurgents-in-exchange-for-pledges-of-peace
…KABUL — The United States has for several years been secretly releasing high-level detainees from a military prison in Afghanistan as part of negotiations with insurgent groups, a bold effort to quell violence but one that U.S. officials acknowledge poses substantial risks.
As the United States has unsuccessfully pursued a peace deal with the Taliban, the “strategic release” program has quietly served as a live diplomatic channel, allowing American officials to use prisoners as bargaining chips in restive provinces where military power has reached its limits.
A farmer tills his field in the village of Lagubu, Sarobi District, north of Kabul. Photo: Lorenzo Tugnoli
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Reblogged from Razistan
“
When I consider the short duration of my life, swallowed up in the eternity before and after, the little space which I fill, and can even see, engulfed in the infinite immensity of spaces of which I am ignorant, and which know me not, I am frightened … the eternal silence of these infinite spaces frightens me.
— Blaise Pascal, “Pensées” (via washingtonpoststyle)
Reblogged from Style
In Afghanistan, underground girls school defies Taliban edict, threats
by KEVIN SIEFF
..Then two brothers, among the few literate men in the village, began quietly teaching math, reading and writing to their female relatives in a living room on the edge of town. They wanted to keep the classes small, they said, to stay off the Taliban’s radar. That turned out to be impossible.
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