Hanan Habibzai

Truth Subcontracted--When Misguided People Guided US’s Foreign Policy Dr. Mohammed Daud Miraki, MA, MA, PhD mdmiraki@ameritech.net Dr. Rahmat Rabi Zirakyar MA, PhD zirakyar1234@yahoo.com The recent incident at Bagram Airbase involving the burning of the Holy Koran has exhibited the return on the US’s investment in Afghanistan. This is the legacy in part of subcontracting the truth to the so-called cultural advisors. This is not the first time this type of disgraceful conduct witnessed by others or the news of such misconduct made its way to the media and stirred peoples’ emotions. Similar misconducts happened many times during US operations in Pashtun villages. This is due to the US government subcontracting the truth by hiring incompetent advisors. By subcontracting the truth to ignorant translators and advisors both linguistically and culturally with premeditated desire to undermine Pashtuns also contributed to the loss of Pashtun lives and destruction of their ...

Hanan Habibzai If you are Afghan, you don't dare to write any facts about the atrocities American military is continuously committing in Afghanistan, but this is the time to speak out, because the future of the country is constantly under attack. There is no future for the current generation of Afghanistan, as American-led military is intentionally targeting children and women. This week's ( 02/06/2011 )massacre of 12 children and two women in southern Helmand province left no option, but provoked thousands of Afghans to either join the Taliban or express their sympathy towards them. Therefore, the Taliban are becoming anti-occupation heroes and their popularity is increasingly spreading across the country. American-led foreign troops do not help themselves, but they strengthen the Taliban's position, when they appear to kill civilians from the air through heavy bombs containing white phosphorous and other chemicals.  Al Jazeera reports on similar cata...

  NATO Killed Children in Afghanistan  By Hanan Habibzai  Kapisa district police chief Abdul Hamid Erkin told AFP that "Two nights ago foreign special forces carried out a raid on a house in Geyawa village in Nejrab district.” The next morning their plane carried out an airstrike on a house in the village as a result of which seven children and one adult were martyred ." He said commanders of French troops who operate in the area "claimed that the target was a group of Taliban facilitators, but we checked the area and there were no Taliban.” In fact the people in the area have very strong anti-Taliban feelings. We filmed the victims, who were children, and showed it to the French commanders," Erkin said.  Children are the main victims Presidential statement confirmed Thursday that NATO airstrike killed eight children in Kapisa province northeast of the capital Kabul. The children were aged between about seven and 15, he said, while the adult was a m...

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...

BBC commitment to impartiality questioned in its coverage of Afghanistan By Hanan Habibzai This article analysis the work of three media organizations relating to their coverage of the same event in Afghanistan. On 10 th February 2011 Lutfullah Mashal, a spokesman from the Afghan National Security Directorate, gave a press conference to the world’s media claiming the government had arrested two men suspected of carrying out a suicide bombing in Kabul that killed eight people. The BBC Pashto Service report of the conference, compared to coverage of the same event by the USA’s Washington Post and an Afghan online news agency Pajhwok calls into question the BBC’s impartiality when reporting on Afghan affairs. The BBC is renowned for its relatively strong commitment to impartial, professional journalism focused on truth in the public interest. ‘‘Impartiality lies at the heart of public service and is the core of the BBC’s commitment to its audiences. It applies to all...

Pashto andPashtuns In the Light of Linguistic Perspective By Prof.Dr.M.A. Zyar Pashto is the language of Pashtuns. Pashtuns (Afghans) are the biggest majority ethno-linguistic tribe and the most long living residents of Afghanistan. The name of the country is links with the name of largest majority, the Pashtuns. From the point of view of history and geography Pashtuns belong to northeastern areas like Pamir and Balkh . The grandpas of Pashtuns were named as Sakas , Kasyan and Sakan, and the Pashto itself were the grandson of Saki language. Other current Saki languages belong to Saka origins like: Osety (Caucasia) and 12 or 13 other Pamiri languages are considered close sisters. Sakas are considered the fifth Aryanian origin along with, Awesta-speaking Zartostrians , Partians , Madians and Parsians , which created big empires many centuries before Christ in the Middle East, Caucasia, to northern west India and Kashmir, and defended its main residential te...