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India Pledges $1 Billion in Economic Aid to Afghanistan

http://www.wsj.com/articles/india-pledges-1-billion-in-economic-aid-to-afghanistan-1473861874

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Why do women wear hijabs?

Some women thing its a way to show modesty towards god. Also to reflect ones devotion to god. As well as to express there muslim identity.

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The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill - Website Maintenance

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One reason is that Afghans have been attacking many people.
http://spectator.org/40005_why-are-we-afghanistan/

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Talks about the worst places and parts of Afghanistan

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The U.S. combat mission in Afghanistan officially ended in 2014. Bases were shuttered, flags were lowered. The war, to some, was officially over. And yet, it goes on.

Just a few months ago, top U.S. military commanders " were planning to pull the last American troops out of Afghanistan by year's end. " Now, it is possible that thousands of troops could remain in the country for decades.

[The U.S. was supposed to leave Afghanistan by 2017. Now it might take decades.]

Daily, Afghan forces battle Taliban insurgents all over the country. Explosions in the country's capital, Kabul, are a regular occurrence. The Islamic State, the extremist group that has seized territory in Iraq and Syria, has established an affiliate in eastern Afghanistan.

As Afghanistan creeps back into the news, here are some stories from the past yearthat provide a glimpse of what has happened in the war-torn land since combat operations officially ended, and how the Afghan people are adapting to a country that will likely be without peace for years to come.
1. In Afghanistan, a series of attacks on Americans during 'non-combat' operations
"The death of Davis highlights the complicated nature of the Afghanistan war as its 15th year begins. While U.S. officials debate the merit of expanding the war against the Islamic State militant group in Iraq and Syria, Washington keeps three times as many service members in Afghanistan, with an even larger force of contractors and civilian employees assisting."
2. A year of Taliban gains shows that 'we haven't delivered,' top Afghan official says
"'We have not met the people's expectations. We haven't delivered,' Abdullah Abdullah, the country's chief executive, told the high-level gathering. 'Our forces lack discipline. They lack rotation opportunities. We haven't taken care of our own policemen and soldiers. They continue to absorb enormous casualties.'"
3. This map explains why Obama decided to leave thousands of troops in Afghanistan
"President Obama announced a significant shift to his Afghanistan exit plan...: Instead of exiting, there will now be up to 5,500 U.S troops staying in Afghanistan through at least 2017."

4. After Kunduz, Taliban is now targeting other Afghan cities

"The Taliban is focusing on two provincial centers in the south, Qalat and Ghazni, according to government officials and residents in those cities. Clashes have erupted in recent days in areas surrounding Ghazni, capital of the province of the same name, and Qalat, capital of Zabul province."
5. By evening, a hospital. By morning, a war zone.
"The U.S. military, whose own account of what took place changed in the initial days after the attack, has said that the hospital was 'mistakenly struck' in an attempt to support Afghan security forces. But the military has declined to provide full details of the incident while its investigators examine what occurred in the worst example of errant U.S. air power in recent years."

6. The outsize legacy of Sangin, one of the deadliest places in Afghanistan for U.S. and British troops

"The bombs were everywhere: not just on the bridges over streams but in the streams themselves. The only way to move was single-file, along a trail painstakingly cleared by a point man with the mine detector. Stepping out of line risked death or dismemberment - a popular U.S. Marine platoon sergeant lost his legs that way - and when troops came under fire, they couldn't even roll into the nearest ditch for cover, so likely was it to be mined."

7. As towns in Helmand Province fall, Marines speak out

"Jeremy Parker was a 20-year-old Marine Lance Corporal when his unit - 1st Battalion, 2nd Marines - pushed into the dusty Afghan town of Musa Qala in March 2010.The fighting, he said, was heavy at times but it was the improvised explosive devices that took their toll. 'At one point our battalion was practically combat ineffective because every time someone left the [base] we'd lose at least one vehicle if not several,' said Parker."

8. Beheading of third-grade girl 'was just the spark' for Afghan minority group

"The next time Ali saw his daughter, in mid-November, she was lying in a coffin with her severed head stitched jaggedly back onto her neck. She and the other passengers, all ethnic Hazaras from Ghazni province, had been abducted on the highway by Taliban insurgents, held captive for 27 days and then beheaded."

9.

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This is how bad the situation is in Afghanistan

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The U.S. combat mission in Afghanistan officially ended in 2014. Bases were shuttered, flags were lowered. The war, to some, was officially over. And yet, it goes on. Just a few months ago, top U.S. military commanders " were planning to pull the last American troops out of Afghanistan by year's end.

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Why Do Afghans Have a Life Expectancy of Only 44 Years?

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According to the CIA World Factbook, an Afghan's life expectancy is merely 44 years.

That's 20 to 30 years less than neighboring Pakistan and all other surrounding countries. It is just one result of the ongoing devastation in that country.

The war in Afghanistan did not start in 2001 with the US invasion. It began 30 years ago in December 1979, when the former Soviet Union invaded the country. The human toll of the conflict is staggering: more than a million Afghans have been killed and 3 million maimed.

Five million (one third of the pre-war population) were forced to leave their country and became refugees. There are still 3.1 million Afghan refugees today, making up 27 percent of the global refugee population. Most of them live in Pakistan. Another two million Afghans were displaced within the country. In the 1980s, one out of two refugees in the world was an Afghan.

Most Afghans alive today have seen nothing but war.

Daily life in Afghanistan is miserable. Only six percent have electricity in a country which gets as cold as Chicago in winter. Even in Kabul, the country's capital, electricity comes for only a few hours a day. Traditional wood heating is difficult since not much wood is left in Afghanistan after 30 years of wars and forest devastation. Over 1,000 people died because of cold weather last year.

"About two million state school students do not have access to safe drinking water and about 75 percent of these schools in Afghanistan do not have safe sanitation facilities," according to the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF).

There is no law and order in most of Afghanistan. Government barely exists in Kabul. Former warlords are the leaders. That is demonstrated by the fact that " Afghanistan is the world's largest cultivator and supplier of opium (93 percent of the global opiates market)." A British daily paper actually reported that "the four largest players in the heroin business are all senior members of the Afghan government."

The Taliban, which has lost its legitimacy due to its brutality, are sometimes remembered by Afghans as those who brought peace to Afghanistan.

Women continue to be the number one victims of the country's 30 years of warfare. According to Malalai Joya, an elected member of the Afghan Parliament and outspoken critic of warlords and war criminals in the government, "the propaganda to the world about liberating Afghanistan and women and fighting against terrorists are lies." In her speech accepting a human rights award in London, she said:

Our nation is still living under the shadow of war, crimes and brutalities of the fundamentalists, and women are the primary and silent sacrifice of this situation. Justice doesn't exist in Afghanistan. Every sector of life in Afghanistan today is a tragedy, from women's rights to security, law and order and domination of a drug mafia.

Almost two generations of Afghan children have grown up seeing nothing but war, bombing, homelessness and hunger. They are an easy target for those who want to play Afghans against each other, through money, drugs and guns.

Afghanistan was almost self-sufficient in food before the Soviet invasion in 1979. The leftist government had instituted many economic and social reforms. But the Soviets went in for the bait set up by the US to take revenge for the Vietnam War, as bragged about by Zbigniew Brzezinski, former US President Jimmy Carter's National Security Advisor. That was the beginning of the Afghan tragedy 30 years ago. Since then, the country has not seen a day of peace except for the brief brutal peace of Taliban era.

America trained, financed and equipped Afghan refugees to become Mujahideen to kill the Communist Soviets. Along the way, we created a cadre of fighters, including Osama bin Laden. Then, we supported and financed the Taliban and now we are trying to kill them as well.

In seven years of US occupation of Afghanistan, the government of Hamid Karzai and American influence have remained limited to Kabul and a few other smaller areas. Now it is not just the Americans, NATO and Pakistan which are playing their cards, but India, Russia and Iran also have increased embassy staff and active participation in carving a realm of power in Afghanistan.

If the British Empire in the 19th century could not succeed in occupying Afghanistan despite close to a century of war on and off, and the Soviets failed to do the same during the twentieth century, we cannot win either. Isn't it about time that we Americans in the 21st century rethink the "good war" in Afghanistan? After seven years of going nowhere, it is surely time for a new strategy.

Consider this: if the Soviets, with 120,000 troops at any given time (500,000 total) could not do it, how can we with only 60,000? An increase of 20,000 to 30,000 American soldiers is unlikely to achieve military victory.

And the Soviet Union was just across the border from Afghanistan, not tens of thousands of miles away as America is.

In Iraq which is half of the size of Afghanistan, the U.S. had more than 150,000 troops plus 190,000 contractors, killing one million people and destroying the whole infrastructure of the country.

Afghanistan has 16 percent more people than Iraq. It has a far more challenging military environment because two-thirds of Afghanistan is mountainous terrain suitable for guerrilla warfare unlike the flat plains of Iraq.

Most Afghans have been raised accustomed to war and hardship during the last three decades, unlike the comparatively more urbanized Iraqis.

That is the reason the outgoing commander of NATO-ISAF, General Dan McNeill, publicly requested anywhere between 100,000 and 400,000 more troops for the fight in Afghanistan.

President Obama has been right to pursue diplomacy with countries like Iran and for extending a hand to the Muslim world. However, he is dangerously wrong for pursuing the military path in Afghanistan. It is one that will only exacerbate terrorism, as well as further destroy a nation crippled by thirty years of war. It will lead to the deaths of more American soldiers. And I have no doubt that it will further lower the life expectancy of Afghans, those who continue to suffer the most.
Abdul Malik Mujahid is a Pakistani-American. He is an Imam in Chicago, President of Sound Vision, and serves as the vice chair for a Council for a Parliament of World Religions.

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Why Do Afghans Have a Life Expectancy of Only 44 Years?

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According to the CIA World Factbook, an Afghan's life expectancy is merely 44 years. That's 20 to 30 years less than neighboring Pakistan and all other surrounding countries. It is just one result of the ongoing devastation in that country. The war in Afghanistan did not start in 2001 with the US invasion.

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“Islam has seven fundamental beliefs that every Muslim must accept as a part of his/her religion (the Emanul Mufassil, or Faith Listed in Detail). Every Muslim learns this formula as a part of his/her religious training.” *

“Belief in God” (the standard word for “God” in Arabic is الله—“Allah”)

“Belief in the angels” (both good and bad)

“Belief in the revealed Books of God”

Belief in God’s many prophets” (including Adam, Abraham,Moses, David, and others Christians and Jews are familiar with)

“Accepting that there will be a Last Day”

Belief in the divine measurement of human affairs

Belief in life after death”

* Yahiya Emerick, Understanding Islam (Indianapolis: Alpha Books, 2002, p. 18.)

Muslims, also, believe in Satan and in a Day of Judgment on which God will send people to either heaven or hell. They also believe thatIshmael (the father of the Arab world), not Isaac, received the promise from God through Abraham; this helps to explain why Arab Muslims feel that their claim to the Holy Land is a God-given right.

contuned on site...
http://www.christiananswers.net/islam.html

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http://www.afghanistans.com/Information/People/Religion.htm

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In 2002 it has been estimated 900,000 boys attended school, while women and girls are almost completely excluded from educational opportunities.

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Education | Afghanistan | U.S. Agency for International Development

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Afghanistan has one of the youngest populations in the world, making quality education particularly critical for the rapidly growing numbers of schoolaged boys and girls. As more Afghans attend school and seek skilled employment, there is a growing demand for textbooks, learning spaces, trained teachers, and innovative approaches that prepare young Afghans to join the workforce.

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-Irisdian

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-Gonzalo New York times Article for Asghanistan

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-Gonzalo New York times Article for Asghanistan

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http://www.nytimes.com/topic/destination/afghanistan

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The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill - Website Maintenance

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Afghanistan Travel Guide | National Geographic

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National Geographic's latest travel stories about Afghanistan

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Education | Afghanistan | U.S. Agency for International Development

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Afghanistan has one of the youngest populations in the world, making quality education particularly critical for the rapidly growing numbers of schoolaged boys and girls. As more Afghans attend school and seek skilled employment, there is a growing demand for textbooks, learning spaces, trained teachers, and innovative approaches that prepare young Afghans to join the workforce.

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This article is about US occupation of Afghanistan and just what was the reason for it and how we might have left it in a worse state or in more turmoil than when we arrived.

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Fatigue was always going to be the decider. Western fatigue with the horrors their troops saw, and with the violence inflicted daily on Afghans themselves. The fatigue of the financial cost, where a power station that was barely ever switched on cost Uncle Sam a third of a billion dollars.

And the other fatigue -- the one felt by the Taliban -- mostly distinguished by its absence; they felt only the tirelessness of their cause.

Sometimes the occasional jolt reminds the world that the war is still ongoing. The conflict, begun initially to oust the Taliban that sheltered al Qaeda chief Osama Bin Laden after the September 11, 2001 attacks on the U.S., has cost the lives of more than 3,500 Coalition service members and tens of thousands of Afghan civilians.

This week, Afghan troops, after months of fury at poor supplies and low morale, fell back from two vital positions in the volatile Helmand province. It leaves Lashkar Gah and Sangin as the major strongholds the government still holds, and a sense of foreboding that the opium-rich southern region will eventually entirely belong to the Taliban.

The war also moved back into focus three weeks ago with the death of Wasil Ahmad. Wasil learned firearms and commanded a unit of anti-Taliban fighters briefly, before Taliban gunmen on a motorbike mowed him down as he bought food for his mother and siblings. Wasil was just 11 years old.

Before the Coalition came

Known as the "graveyard of empires," Afghanistan has a reputation for humiliating would-be conquerors. Both the Soviets, in the 1980s, and the British, during the 19th century, were forced to beat bloody retreats from Afghanistan, deprived of what looked, on paper, to be easy victories.

Time has changed the definition of what people nowadays call an "empire," but not this perception. The U.S. military liked to feel wise as they repeated the maxim that they had the "fancy watch, but the Taliban had the time." In truth, the American watch ran out of batteries, leaving the Taliban owning both the aphorism and the clock.

The rise of the Taliban before 9/11 owed much to the country's ethnic divides. In the civil war that followed the withdrawal of Soviet troops in 1989, Pashtun forces swept in from the south, towards the capital Kabul, and pushed the Tajiks back to the north.

The U.S. special forces harnessed the losing side in that civil war, and other purchasable warlords, to oust the Taliban from Kabul. There they installed the smooth and charismatic Hamid Karzai as president, who battled through the country's myriad complexities to bring it together. Bin Laden was on the run; so was the Taliban, some of them hiding in Pakistan. For a little while.

Time passed. The U.S. invaded Iraq in 2003. The Taliban found its feet again. The U.S. began to get mired in Iraq. The insurgency picked up. The Afghan government started losing ground. By 2008, it was a full-on emergency and the U.S. realized -- even from the liberal anti-war perch of President Barack Obama -- that this was the "just war" that it must fight.

And then, the war ramped up

For about three years, there was intense focus. First came the surge. Up to 100,000 U.S. troops (as part of a NATO force) at one point, pressing into the darkest Taliban valleys. Holding ground -- spending millions every month to maintain a presence in tiny dusty villages in faraway places like Kandahar to show the insurgency the U.S. had the resolve.

But it was never going to last. In fact, that was always an advertised part of the plan: the U.S. and NATO would hold the land for a few years -- until they thought the Afghan troops were ready -- and then they would pull out. The Taliban had to hope the Afghans wouldn't be ready, and just wait. It seems they did.

Secondly, came the budgets: $110 billion spent in the largest reconstruction effort in U.S. history. Some new roads that made life in some towns viable again, but also buildings that always stood empty, and an injection of cash into Kabul so unrealistic, unprecedented and absurd that the cost of living became almost reckless.

At one point the World Bank suggested more than 90% of Afghanistan's total budget was aid-dependent. (I got a very quick call from the U.S. Embassy telling me this wasn't true -- no alternative figure was offered). Housing for Afghans became more expensive -- some rents have now dropped by almost half. From behind the concrete blast walls where foreigners mainly lived, a (small) can of black market Heineken at one point cost $10. America had no shortage of cash, just a shortage of viable ways to spend it, resulting in some daft projects and a brief pocket of total imbalance in the Afghan economy.

Thirdly came the leadership. U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates fired the military commander of the NATO-led security mission in Afghanistan ISAF, David McKiernan, in 2009 and replaced him with Stanley McChrystal, a special forces veteran.

McChrystal's bleak assessment of the war was damning enough to suggest the Green Beret knew the scope of the challenge. He had a plan -- and it was leaked quickly enough to back the White House into a corner that involved a large commitment of resources. It involved talking to Afghans, and winning them over. Troops would get out and meet people. For a moment, it seemed to work.

Then the bizarre happened. Eyjafjallajökull, a volcano in Iceland erupted in 2010, scattering ash into the atmosphere and grounding aircraft. McChrystal and his team were among those delayed, along with a Rolling Stone reporter. They spoke their minds, found themselves in print, and McChrystal was fired. From that point, the war felt like it changed. Forever.

David Petraeus swept in that year as McChrystal's successor -- a career general, mindful that the clock was ticking on the surge. The campaign focused on the message and that clock. Petraeus was succeeded by another Iraq veteran, John Allen, whose role was about cleaning up. The surge had almost worked, but been interrupted, caught short, and now America was leaving.

Between January and May 2012, every day seemed to bring a new calamity to the U.S. military presence. From Qurans burned apparently in error; to the corpses of Taliban fighters urinated on by Marines who filmed themselves as they did it; to a massacre by an American soldier in a Kandahar village. Even the most footsure NATO spokesman seemed to lose faith.

So what was achieved?

Well, at one point, al Qaeda was said to be in its mere hundreds in Afghanistan -- hiding away in the eastern hills. Bin Laden had been killed in Pakistan. A few thousand Afghans became absurdly rich on the U.S. presence. Far many more thousands (there is no real, reliable figure) died or were injured.

Women saw a brief moment when Western aid programs and ideals let them think about lives outside of the home, where they could flourish. (They still can think about that, but now risk more than ever brutal reprisals from conservatives). The West flooded the country with money and weapons to the point that it is now a land of warlords on steroids.

The Afghan army, briefly, swelled. But it could never hold the ground NATO did. NATO advisors would swear blind that you were wrong, that the ramshackle units you saw could defeat a hungry and angry local insurgency. But it became clear they were misinformed. That an inner malaise -- corruption -- would undo the Afghan National Security Forces, whose upkeep has cost the U.S. taxpayer well over $60 billion, and whose brave losses continue now at an unprecedented speed.

Two stories stick out of Afghans who are not where the West told them they would be. The first is Gulnaz, the woman who was raped, then jailed for adultery because her attacker was married, then told she would have to marry him. International pressure led to her release into a shelter for women, but three years later I found her living with her attacker, and married to him -- the only way Afghanistan's at times backwards world could find to reconcile the crime against her.

Second is Wahid. He commanded an Afghan army unit, fighting fiercely in Kunduz against the Taliban. They had little support, he alleged, even ammunition, and the dead bodies of their fallen comrades were left to rot in their besieged base. So he fled -- dodging bullets in Iran, taking the boat to Greece, and enduring tear gas near Hungary. He is exactly the sort of Afghan the West promised a future to and needed to stay where he was -- defending his country. We found him eating a muffin in a café in Munich, Germany.

Where are we now?

The dissent in the ranks of the Taliban has led to ISIS becoming a radical, brutal and attractive alternative to the country's disenfranchised youth, for whom the old insurgency isn't moving fast enough.

According to the U.S. Special Inspector General for Afghan Reconstruction (SIGAR -- the U.S. government's money watchdog there), the Taliban hold more territory now than at any time since 2001. There are about 10,000 U.S. troops left, who can hunt extremists, but not hold territory. And it seems neither can the Afghan army at times. It is losing fast in Helmand. It lost Kunduz temporarily in October. If you suggested either of these losses were remotely possible two years ago, most NATO advisors would accuse you of mild insanity.

In terms of Western goals -- things are right back where they started: needing to keep Afghanistan free of extremists and a viable country for its people. Without that the result is thousands of refugees in Europe, and ISIS gets a new safe haven. What is left is a country where the West is discredited as unwilling to stay the course; where most fighters are meaner, better armed, and more chaotic than they were in 2001; and whose name causes opinion-formers in the West to try and change the subject.

It was dubbed the Just War, then the Forever War. Now many want it to be the Forgotten War.

But it is still a war, and the West owns a lot of it.

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afghanistan war: just what was the point? - cnn

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Afghanistan war: Just what was the point? - CNN

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Fatigue was always going to be the decider. Western fatigue with the horrors their troops saw, and with the violence inflicted daily on Afghans themselves. The fatigue of the financial cost, where a power station that was barely ever switched on cost Uncle Sam a third of a billion dollars.

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58% of urban households have access to safe water       - arely

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58% of urban households have access to safe water       - arely

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http://borgenproject.org/poverty-in-afghanistan/

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http://afghanistan.saarctourism.org/food.html

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Afghan Persian or Dari (official) 50%, Pashto (official) 35%, Turkic languages (primarily Uzbek and Turkmen) 11%, 30 minor languages (primarily Balochi and Pashai) 4%, much bilingualism, but Dari functions as the lingua franca

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This article shows that the U.S. is protecting drug fields in Afghanistan. Bush did 9/11.

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Drug War? American Troops Are Protecting Afghan Opium. U.S. Occupation Leads to All-Time High Heroin Production

This article was first published in June 2014.
It is well-documented that the U.S. government has - at least at some times in some parts of the world - protected drug operations. (Big American banks also launder money for drug cartels. See this, this, this and this. Indeed, drug dealers kept the banking system afloat during the depths of the 2008 financial crisis. And the U.S. drug money laundering is continuing to this day.)
The U.S. military has openly said that it is protecting Afghani poppy fields:

As Wikipedia notes:

Opium production in Afghanistan has been on the rise since U.S. occupation started in 2001.

Indeed, a brand new report from the United Nations finds that opium production is at an all-time high.

Common Dreams notes:

The cultivation of opium poppy in Afghanistan-a nation under the military control of US and NATO forces for more than twelve years-has risen to an all-time high, according to the 2013 Afghanistan Opium Survey released Wednesday by the United Nations.

According to the report, cultivation of poppy across the war-torn nation rose 36 per cent in 2013 and total opium production amounted to 5,500 tons, up by almost a half since 2012.

"This has never been witnessed before in the history of Afghanistan," said Jean-Luc Lemahieu, the outgoing leader of the Afghanistan office of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, which produced the report.

***

The U.S. military has allowed poppy cultivation to continue in order to appease farmers and government officials involved with the drug trade who might otherwise turn against the Afghan Karzai government in Kabul. Fueling both sides, in fact, the opium and heroin industry is both a product of the war and an essential source for continued conflict.

Public Intelligence has published a series of photographs showing American - and U.S.-trained Afghan - troops patrolling poppy fields in Afghanistan. Public Intelligence informs us that all of the photos are in the public domain, and not subject to copyright, and they assured me that I have every right to reproduce them.

We produce these photos and the accompanying descriptions from Public Intelligence without further comment.

U.S. Marine Corps Sgt. Noel Rodriguez, a team leader with Alpha Company, 1st Battalion, 7th Marine Regiment, Regimental Combat Team 6, communicates with an adjacent squad while on patrol in Sangin, Helmand province, Afghanistan, May 1, 2012. Marines patrolled to provide security in the area and interact with the local populace.

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Drug War? American Troops Are Protecting Afghan Opium. U.S. Occupation Leads to All-Time High Heroin Production This article was first published in June 2014. It is well-documented that the U.S. government has - at least at some times in some parts of the world - protected drug operations.

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This article showed me that kabobs are the fast food of Afghanistan

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404 - Page Not Found | University of West Florida

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University of West Florida (UWF), one of twelve accredited Florida universities located in America's oldest settlement, Pensacola, on the Northwest Florida Gulf Coast

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On October 31'st 1918 fighting with Allied ended and it was thought that there would be stability brought to the region. But after World War 1 the Middle East became more unstable. This was done by Connor Hill.
http://www.nzhistory.net.nz/war/ottoman-empire/collapse

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This article shows that Hazara is being eliminated by 60% of its population. - Marcos

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This article shows that Hazara is being eliminated by 60% of its population. - Marcos

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An estimated 60% of Hazara population was exterminated during the 1890's genocide of Hazaras in Afghanistan. During and after the genocide, Hazaras lands were confiscated and distributed to the Pashtuns (including the Pushtun Nomads known as Kuchis), and tens of thousands of Hazaras men, women, and children were sold as slaves.