This should give the iconic flower-stuffed gun imagery a new kick. After serving in Afghanistan, British Army officer Bran Symondson returned to photograph the Afghan National Police — tender moments and lots of poppies. Yes, they are all stoned on that “absolutely stunning plant” and hash. Read more »
Is this Mural Inspiring or Frightening?
Talibanksy isn’t the only art collective operating inside Kabul, meet Roshd, translated as “growth.” Their aim is to brighten up Afghanistan’s capital with art and they’ve begun painting a few murals, like this one by 22-year-old Ommolbanin Shamsia Hassani. It’s inspired by clean women: Read more »
A man claiming to be a Taliban leader duped both the United States and Afghanistan in a peace deal scam reports the New York Times. He convinced officials that he was brokering a truce of sorts with a senior Taliban commander, even managing to get whisked in on a NATO plane under protection of a security detail for a meeting with Hamid Karzai at the presidential palace. A diplomat involved with the talks explains the tragic comedy rather matter-of-factly: “It’s not him. And we gave him a lot of money.”
That’s the question officials in the UK are looking into amidst reports that soldiers have been transporting the lucrative drug, Frank Lucas style, on military aircraft. It certainly makes sense if they were (and it wouldn’t be a first either). After all, how else can a country as occupied and remote as Afghanistan, still account for 90% of the entire world’s opium production? Read more »
“Time Life” presents: The Torture Classics collection. All the “make me talk hits” in one mind fucking compilation, remastered for that “detention-cell perfect sound.” Read more »
In the past three years, over $3 billion in CASH was flown out of Kabul reports the Wall Street Journal. Officials don’t know exactly who got what, but have a general idea: “U.S. investigators believe top Afghan officials and their associates are sending billions of diverted U.S. aid and logistics dollars and drug money to financial safe havens abroad.” That’s still $9 billion less than what was lost in Iraq.
Afghans—Don’t Let Your Babies Grow Up To Be Bombers
This is a billboard, via the US military, currently running in Afghanistan. Why can’t Massoud be both (well, until he pulls the chord)? Says, Lt. Col. Allen McCormick, the former P&G marketing man behind this new effort to win Afghan hearts and minds and babies: Read more »
You don’t even have to wear a tinfoil hat to think there’s something fishy about Afghanistan now leading the world in hash production (in addition to heroin) according to a new report (PDF doc). With only two international airports and the place crawling with DEA agents, U.S. Armed Forces and U.N. soldiers, it’s kind of amazing how this tiny country is able to pull of these remarkable feats during massive occupations. Adding to the strangeness, just today, Diplomat Peter Galbraith suggested that Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai is a junkie—which is still better than him joining the Taliban!
Military commanders are worried that fast food outlets located on U.S. bases in Afghanistan are eating up valuable resources and making life in the hellish country way too cushy for soldiers, so they’re closing them down once their contracts expire. That means no more Burger King, Pizza Hut or T.G.I. Friday’s, but the cutbacks don’t stop there. Members of the Armed Forces can also expect “fewer canned and bottled goods…as well as fewer first-run movie showings,” reports Reuters. |Reuters|
Residents of Marjah, Afghanistan are worried that a battle between U.S. troops and Taliban forces is about to break out in one of the country’s most doped-out valleys. Many have left what the AFP describes as “one of the world’s main sources of heroin and for eight years a major bastion of Taliban insurgents.” And presumably junkies too! |AFP|
Photo: Julie Jacobson/AP via NPR
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