Hanan Habibzai

The Times Remembers the Dasht-e-Leili Massacre By Prof. Edward Herman I t is always interesting and enlightening to see the New York Times picking up a story belatedly and tracing through the reasons for its early neglect and later resuscitation. This often fits the Orwellian Big Brother principle of using a story only when it is politically helpful and suppressing it when it is inconvenient—forgetting, "and then, when it become necessary again [drawing] it back from oblivion" ( 1984 ). My favorite case was the failure of the New York Times to mention the Salvadoran army death list of 138 left-wing and liberal politicians back in 1982, when the United States was supporting a "demonstration election" there and publicizing the death list would suggest unfavorable electoral conditions, but then mentioning that list in 1989 when the left was tentatively entering an election and the paper was anxious to put that election in a good light, contrasting it with t...

By Hanan Habibzai The war in Afghanistan has entered its 10 th  year, a year of both stalemate and suffering.Everyone is thirsty to see peace and stability in his or her environment across Afghanistan but they are not sure.  Even the idea of peace carries great danger. “If the war criminals who tried to destroy innocent families who worked with the Taliban gain power, returning to peace will be impossible,’ said 23 year old Jailani. His father was amongst those Taliban prisoners who were  captured in Kundoz province in  October 2001 never to be seen again. Jailani was 13 when his father Shah Ghasi left him behind along with his mother and elderly grandmother. ‘He was working at the provincial police headquarter when the Taliban decided to surrender Kundoz to  US backed Northern Alliance forces .  American air power had made holding this region untenable for the Taliban. “Later we have been told that my father has taken to Shaberghan but he neve...