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Today's
Stories
November 6-8, 2009
Mark Greuter
Inside the American University of Iraq
November 5, 2009
Pam Martens
The Fire Sale of America
Vijay Prashad
The Great Heretic
Brian Gallagher
The Soldiers From Standard Oil: Harvard, ROTC and American Foreign Policy
Norman Solomon
The Next Phase in Health Care Apartheid
Nadia Hijab
The Battle for Palestinian Representation
Joseph Shanksy
And the Winner in Honduras is ... the United States?
Andy Thayer
Questions and Answers From Maine
Tracy Rosenberg
Pacifica and the Barbarians Who Pay the Bills
Website of the Day
All Folked Up
November 4, 2009
Stan Cox
The Inflated Promise of Natural Gas
Andy Worthington From Gitmo to Palau: Who are the Uighurs?
Robert Weissman
The Medicare-for-All Moment
Susan Galleymore
Of Veterans and Volunteers
Ralph Nader
Hoh's Afghanistan Warning
Michael Leonardi
Italy's Secret Ships of Poison
Bitta Mistofi
Death to No One: Isolating and Taunting Iran Will Only Empower the Regime
Robert Bryce
From Lahore to Copenhagen
Martha Rosenberg
Is Your Doctor's Continuing Ed Funded by Drug Makers?
Dave Lindorff
Democrats Crash and Burn
Website of the Day
Single-Payer Backtrackers
November 3, 2009
Patrick Cockburn
The Delegitimization of Karzai
Mike Whitney
Why the Crisis Isn't Going Away
Franklin C. Spinney
Katrina and the Paralysis of Fear
Laura Carlsen
The Little Coup That Couldn't
Serge Halimi
Don't Blame the Internet
John Stanton
Social Decay in America
Sophia Weeks
A Guatemalan Lament
Dave Lindorff
Country Joe, Kenny Rogers and Obama
November 2, 2009
Steven Higgs
Autism Spikes, Toxins Suspected
Ishmael Reed
White in America: Behind the Scenes at CNN
David Macaray
UAW Members Vote Down Ford; and the Media Attacked the Union
Bouthaina Shaaban
Settler Colonialism: Return to the Middle Ages
David Michael Green
Coming to Get You
David Swanson
The Two Percent Robustness
Ellen Brown
Cutting Wall Street Out
Adam Federman
Trading the Watershed to Trash the Catskills
James McEnteer
Doppleganger Politics:
Star Wars, Clone Wars
Stephen Fleischman
Foot in the Door: Capitalism and Health Care
Website of the Day
Secret California Park Giveaway
October 30 - Nov. 1, 2009
Alexander Cockburn
The Long Gaze of the State
Jeffrey St. Clair /
Joshua Frank
Facing Down the Machine: Mike Roselle Draws a Line
Carl Ginsburg
Living in the Shadow of Yankee Stadium
Mike Whitney
Obama Goes Wobbly Over More Stimulus
Joe Bageant
The Iron Cheer of Empire
Gareth Porter
Security By Warlords: the CIA's Afghan Payroll
Saul Landau
The Cuban Embargo
Anthony DiMaggio
Conspiracy, Inc.: Wild Tales From the Reactionary Right
Dave Lindorff
Happy Talk Amid the Wreckage: Stocks Up, Jobs Down
Rannie Amiri
The Spooks of Beirut
Niranjan Ramakrishnan
An Afghan Travelogue
Jayne Lyn Stahl
Who Will Reform the Health Care Reform?
Rev. William E. Alberts
God's Favorite Team (and Nation and Religion)
Alvaro Huerta
The Abominable Mr. Dobbs
Martha Rosenberg
Marketing Drugs to Psychoneurotics
Binoy Kampmark
Don't Give Us Your Wretched: Refugee Policy in OZ
Norm Kent
Not Just Zig-Zag Any More: Medical Marijuana Goes Mainstream
Charles R. Larson Roth's "The Humbling:" Nothing Like a Novel From an Old Pro
Ron Jacobs
One Man's Truth, Another Man's Lies
David Yearsley
Not Loud Enough by Half
Lorenzo Wolff
The Vulnerability of Lauryn Hill
Kim Nicolini
"Big Fan:"
Football, Class and Sexuality in America
Poets' Basement
Davies, Heyen and Orloski
Website of the Weekend
Coal Country Music
October 29, 2009
Michael Neumann
Criticism of Israel: a Wonderful Hiding Place
Mike Whitney
Housing Rebound? Not So Fast
Gary Leupp
Matthew Hoh Speaks Truth to Power
Conn Hallinan
Roman Roads and Modern Emperors
Marshall Auerback
Obama's Bogus Populism: Pay Curbs and Bank Loans
Laura Flanders
Palin's Pet Doug Hoffman Has Taliban Ties
Eamonn McCann
The War Criminal Vote: Blair or Karadzic for EU President?
David Macaray
Strange Invaders:
Can Ignorance and Arrogance Win Hearts and Minds?
Mark Weisbrot
When Small Countries Lead the Way
Stephen Soldz
Psychologist Complicity in Torture Challenged
Christopher Brauchli
Will the Pope Bring the Taliban Into His Flock?
Website of the Day
The USS Liberty Affair and the Problem of Truth in History
October 28, 2009
Moshe Adler
How to Reduce Unemployment, Rebuild the Middle Class and Free Ourselves From Wall Street
Dave Lindorff
America's Drug Crisis: Brought to You by the CIA
Frank Joseph Smecker
Agaisnt Prometheus: an Interview with Derrick Jensen on Science and Technology
Alexandra Early
What a "Jobless" Recovery Means for Young Workers
M. Shahid Alam
Israeli Exceptionalism
Vijay Prashad
Sahelian Blowback:
What's Happening in Mali?
John Ross
Three Years Later, Brad Will is Still Dead
Franklin Lamb
A
Rare Victory for Lebanon's Palestinians
Gregory Travis
The Dismal Science: Elinor Ostrom's Nobel
Susan Galleymore
Peace Cycle to Palestine
Website of the Day
Newspaper Decline, a Graphic Display
October 27, 2009
Mike Whitney
Black Tuesday and How We Got Out of It
Patrick Cockburn
Bombs Will Go Off in Baghdad, Whether the US is There or Not
Stewart J. Lawrence
Honduran Coup Myths Dispelled
Alan Farago
Power Plays in Florida: Rate Increases, Nukes and Deception
Ralph Nader
Obama: Form Letters and Business as Usual
Dave Lindorff
Pentagon Dirty Bombers: DU in America
Bouthaina Shaaban
The Danger of Towing the Line Behind Israel
Brian M. Downing Elections in Afghanistan, the Second Time Around
Iain Boal
How You Can Save Pacifica
Carl Finamore
Hotel Workers and the Law of Momentum
Jayne Lyn Stahl
Here Comes That Third Party: Palin and the Constitutionalists
Website of the Day
How Bank of America Charges for Perfect Credit
October 26, 2009
Bill Quigley /
Deborah Popowski
When Gitmo and Abu Ghraib Come Home
Paul Craig Roberts
Are You Ready for the Next Crisis?
Uri Avnery
A Tsunami Called Goldstone
Mike Whitney
Will the Dollar Remain the World's Reserve Currency in Five Years?
Michael Snedeker
The Execution of Cameron Willingham
Shamus Cooke
Obama's Dirty War on Immigrants
David Michael Green
Paranoia for Breakfast
Martha Rosenberg
Gagging Michael Pollan
Patrick Bond
Gridlock on the Way to Copenhagen
Binoy Kampmark
Heading for the Tiber
Website of the Day
Goldman Sachs Abandons Kittens
October 23-25, 2009
Alexander Cockburn
All the Populism Money Can Buy
Christopher Ketcham
Unlearning the CIA: the Education of Bob Baer
Jeff Gore
Palestine in Pieces: an Interview with Bill and Kathleen Christison
Gareth Porter
What Really Prompted Iran to Build the Qom Enrichment Facility?
Jayne Lyn Stahl
The Power Behind the Drone
Saul Landau
Fidel on Obama and Consumerism
Mike Whitney
The Great Dollar Collapse Debate
Nikolas Kozloff
Challenging the Dollar Dictatorship: an Interview with Economist Ethan Kaplan
Ron Jacobs
The Vatican's Takeover Bid
Russell Mokhiber
The Weiner Charade
Missy Beattie
Gainful Employment
Ricardo Alarcón de Quesada
Posada and the Cuban 5: Without Any Exception Whatsoever?
Stephen Lendman
Cashing In, Selling Out:
AARP's Tradition of Betrayal
David Ker Thomson
Natural History: Make Some Today
Rannie Amiri
Saada Under Siege
Ronnie Cummins
The Organic Revolution
Norm Kent
Bring It On:
Fox News vs. Team Obama
Charles R. Larson
Zimbabwe's Unravelling
David Yearsley
Damn Near Dead at Yale
Lorenzo Wolff
A Fistful of Your Own Teeth
Ben Sonnenberg
Costa-Gavras's "Z": an Excellent Thriller
Kim Nicolini
Where the Wild Things Are: Max's Hollow Utopia
Poets' Basement
Three Poems by Leonard J. Cirino
Website of the Weekend
Truth Squading Timberland: Join the Fray!
October 22, 2009
Dan Pearson /
Kathy Kelly
The Rotten Fruits of War
Jonathan Cook
Israeli Police Don Arab Disguises
Paul Craig Roberts The US as Failed State
Mark Engler
Pranksters Fixing the World: and Interview with the Yes Men
Johann Hari
Three Myths Driving the Afghan War
Brian M. Downing
Losing the War
Eric Toussaint
Small Oversights and Big Lies About Latin America
Tom Mountain
Busting the Darfur Myth
Israel Shamir
Russia's Daring Vote
Charles Thomson
What is Damien Hirst Playing At?
Website of the Day
Hitler Upset At Balloon Boy Hoax
October 21, 2009
Pam Martens
The Next Financial Crisis Hits Wall Street: Judges Start Nixing Foreclosures
Linn Washington, Jr.
A Kafkaesque Deportation
Liaquat Ali Khan
Now Pakistan: Sequential Destruction of Muslim Nations
D. K. Wilson
Rush Limbaugh and the NFL
Franklin Lamb
Syria's Golan Heights
Norman Solomon
Uncle Sam in Afghanistan
Stephen Fleischman
Hypocrisy Unbridled
Patrice Higonnet
On Harvard's Financial Crisis
Binoy Kampmark
Herta Müller's Nobel
Kevin Coval /
Josh Healey
Searching for a Minyan
Website of the Day
How Wall Street is Making Its Bilions
October 20, 2009
Sharon Smith
Et Tu, Codepink?
Tariq Ali
Farce in Kabul, Tragedy in Pakistan
Mark Brenner
Pensions: the Next Casualty of Wall Street
Bouthaina Shaaban
The Adoption of the Goldstone Report: What Does It Mean?
Michael D. Yates
Down in the Valley With Cesar: Power, Paranoia and Purges in the UFW
Dean Baker
Does Citibank Need China?
Dave Lindorff
Depleted Uranium Weapons: Dead Babies in Iraq and Afghanistan are No Joke
John Ross
Chronicle of a Tormenta Electrica, II
Ricardo Alarcón de Quesada
Cuban Five:
a Very Important Liar
Kevin Zeese
Can the Democrats Avoid a Populist Health Care Rebellion?
Gilad Atzmon
Autumn in Shanghai
Website of the Day
A Message From the Gyre
October 19, 2009
Mike Whitney
The Dollar Will Not Crash
Greg Moses
The Cash Cops of Tenaha
John Ross
Chronicle of a Tormenta Electrica
Michael Donnelly
Outside Agitator
Jayne Lyn Stahl
Dick's Fringe Army:
Tea Baggers and Birchers?
Eric Walberg
The Battle in Canada
Russell Mokhiber
Pennsylvania, First in the Nation for Single Payer?
Barbara Rose Johnston
War, Peace and the Obamajority
John V. Whitbeck
Zionism: an Anti-Semite's Dream?
Christopher Ketcham
Swine Fools
Website of the Day
Greenspan: Break Up the Big Banks?
October 16-18, 2009
Alexander Cockburn
White House v. Fox News: a War Obama Can Win
Saul Landau
Autumn of the Patriarch
Paul Craig Roberts
The Rich Have Stolen the Economy
Carl Ginsburg
Where $18 an Hour is Too Much
Ralph Nader
Barney Frank the Bankers' Consort
Nikolas Kozloff
Rainforest Beef, Factory Farms and Anthony Bourdain's War on Vegetarians
Carlo Galli
Berlusconi: Still Doing Nothing, Still There
Dave Lindorff
Agent Orange in Vietnam: Ignoring the Crimes Before Our Eyes
Catherine Rottenberg
/ Neve Gordon
Educating Children in War Zones
Marshall Auerback
Dollar Spasms
Nicola Nasser
The Realistic Way Out of Iraq
Windy Cooler
The Ghost of John Brown
James L. Secor
Why I Miss China
Ron Jacobs
Escalation Unopposed
Wes Jackson
A Way of Knowing
Jesse Lerner-Kinglake
Global Food Fight
David Ker Thomson Against Leaders
Missy Beattie
Dinner With the President
Emily Ratner
Taping Our Mouths Shut to Scream Out Our Dissent
Stephen Martin
The Scorched Earth Mindset of the International Banker
Michael Snedeker
"A Place of Greater Safety"
Charles R. Larson
Cheeta: the Last of the Hollywood High-Rollers
David Yearsley
Judith Leyster's Sensuous Passions
Peter Stone Brown
It's a Bob Christmas for Halloween
Poets' Basement
Keeler, Beatty and Anderson
Website of the Weekend
Elements of Nature
October 15, 2009
Andrew Cockburn
Our Cheap Politicians
Brian M. Downing
Rethinking the Afghan Insurgency
Ramzy Baroud
Abbas and the Goldstone Report: Our Shame is Complete
Danny Weil
A Neo-Liberal Arts Education: Diploma Mills and Debt Peonage
M. Idrees Ahmad
Return to Peshawar: a Journey Home
Margaret Kimberley
Michelle's Family Tree
Ricardo Alarcón de Quesada
Cuban Five:
Which Side Are You On?
Harvey Wasserman
Nuking the Climate Bill
Nirmal Ghosh
A Tale of Two Protocols: How Montreal Could Save Us From the Mire of Kyoto
Charles R. Larson
Sarah Palin Bears It All
Website of the Day
Tortured Law
October 14, 2009
Michael Neumann
Fearsome Words? a Suppressed Talk on the Israel/Palestine Conflict
M. Reza Pirbhai
Fighting the Taliban: What, Exactly, is Being Fought in Afghanistan?
Gareth Porter
Hawks Play Up the Taliban's Ties to Al Qaeda
Paul Craig Roberts
War Criminals Are Becoming Arbiters of the Law
John Strausbaugh Fortress Moon
Ralph Nader
The CBO's Flawed Report on Medical Malpractice
Dean Baker
Won't You Please Come to Chicago to Greet the Bankers?
Charles Modiano
White Silence: Where Does Brett Favre Stand on Rush Limbaugh?
Nadia Hijab
Abandoning "Women and Children"
Walter Brasch
An Extension of Her Motherhood: Sherry Carpenter, Journalist and Animal Care Provider
Website of the Day
Nader: Obama Has a "Concessionary Personality"
October 13, 2009
Peter Linebaugh
Putting the Spine Back in the Commonwealth
Shamus Cooke
What Obama Isn't Telling American Workers
John Ross
War on Mexican Women
Brendan Cooney
Ask Awal Khan About Obama's Prize
Frida Berrigan
Operation Enduring Detentions:
Losing the Moral High Ground
Yves Engler
Is Canada More Pro-Israel Than the US?
David Macaray
Why the Government Fears Unions
Dave Lindorff
Democrats:
Selling Out, But Still Getting Screwed
Mark Weisbrot
Occupying Afghanistan is Making Things Worse
Ricardo Alarcón de Quesada
History Repeats Itself
Binoy Kampmark
That Dirty Colonial War
Website of the Day
The Health Insurance Industry's Latest Doublecross
October 12, 2009
Pam Martens
Secret Deal Between Wall Street and Washington Shines a Harsh Light on Federal Housing Agency
Mike Whitney
A Dollar Rout or More Bernanke Trickery?
Martha Rosenberg
Yale Lab Tech Causes Two Problems for Animal Researchers
Jessica Arents
The Price of Peace: Our Arrest at the White House
Eamonn McCann
Massacre in Ireland, Massacre in Iraq
Bill Hatch
Dairy Industry Goes Down the Tubes
Sen. Russell Feingold
Time for a Timetable in Afghanistan
Niranjan Ramakrishnan
The Siren Song of World Praise
Gideon Levy
Obama's Betrayed Mission in the Middle East
Iyad Burnat
Why Does Obama Get a Prize and Bush Got Shoes?
Alan Cabal
Why Obama Deserves the Nobel
Dan Bacher
The Astroturf Method
Website of the Day
The Palestine Chronicle Needs Your Help
October 9-11, 2009
Alexander Cockburn
War and Peace
James Bovard
Eight Years of Big Lies on Afghanistan
Kathleen and Bill Christison
New Crisis Developing in Palestine
Andy Worthington
Congressional Depravity on Gitmo
Marc Levy
Talking Dirty to the Kids
Tariq Ali
Ahmed Rashid's War
Mike Whitney
The Securitization Boondoggle
Paul Craig Roberts
Warmonger Wins Peace Prize
Alan Nasser
Cockeyed Economics
Jack Z. Bratich
The Twitterest Pill: Policing Dissent in the Information Age
Steve Breyman
Time for a War Tax
David Michael Green
A Hapless Presidency
Dave Lindorff
The WTF Prize
Paul Buchheit
Fear of the Rich
Jim Goodman
Feedlots and E. Coli
Missy Beattie
Theater of the Absurd
Michael Leonardi
Ships of Poison
Nadia Hijab
The Plight of the Right of Return
Mel Packer
The Crackdown on Pittsburgh
David Macaray
The Raiding Game
James T. Phillips
Getting Burned
Charles R. Larson
One Man's Walk Through Hell
Michael Donnelly
Behind the Capitalist Curtain
David Yearsley
The Biggest Blot on Mel Gibson's Rap Sheet
Lorenzo Wolff
Rap That Threatens ... and Endures
Poets' Basement
Heyen, Ames and Buknatski
Website of the Weekend
Jobs Conference
October 8, 2009
Saul Landau
A Late September Morning With Fidel
Paul Fitzgerald /
Elizabeth Gould
Dark Omens for the US in Afghanistan
Linn Washington, Jr.
Pot and Perversion: Judicial Antics Expose Drug War Insanity
Marshall Auerback
Neo-Classical Economics Misses What Matters
Dave Lindorff
A Nation of Snoops
David Rosen
Bankrupt Morality: the Staying Power of Republican Sinners
Chris Darimont / Misty MacDuffee
The Bear Essentials: New Thinking Needed to Save BC's Salmon and Grizzlies
John V. Walsh
Remembering Hinton's Fanshen
Stewart Lawrence
The Edwards / Hunter Affair Reconsidered
Charles R. Larson
Conservatives in the Sandbox
Website of the Day
Et Tu, Code Pink?
October 7, 2009
Brendan Cooney
Are Republicans Breaking US Law in Honduras?
Paul Craig Roberts
Dead Labor: Marx and Lenin Reconsidered
Dean Baker
Bernanke's Recovery: Unemployment Up, Wages Down (But the Banks Have Been Saved ... Sort Of)
Jonathan Cook
A Third Intifada?
John Stanton
HTS:
Congress Rewards Failure, Puts Personnel in Harms Way
Joanne Mariner
Tortured Language
Ricardo Alarcón de Quesada
Cherry Blossoms
Stephen Lendman
The Gaza War's Effect on Women
Sen. Russell Feingold
Time to Draw Down in Afghanistan
Mary Lynn Cramer
Doublespeak on Health Care
Website of the Day
How to Bag a Wolf by Aerial Assault
October 6, 2009
Mike Whitney
Dollar Hysteria: Is the Sky Really Falling?
Gareth Porter
The Iranian Rift in the IAEA: Leaked Paper Based on Disputed Intel
Jonathan Cook
How Israel Buried the UN's War Crime Probe
Boris Kagarlitsky
My Hour as Talking Head in Moscow
Iain Boal
The New Crisis at Pacifica
Ron Jacobs
Why Are We in Afghanistan?
John Ross
Wave of Anarchist Bombings Strikes Mexico
Michael Dickinson
Panic in Istanbul: Smoke, Mayhem and the World Bank
Stephen Fleischman
Beware the Predator
Ira Glunts
The Audacity of Nope
Missy Beattie
Outside Looking In
Website of the Day
Round Up the Usual Suspects
October 5, 2009
Pam Martens
Wall Street Titans Use Aliases to Foreclose on Families While Partnering with a Federal Agency
Mike Whitney
Dead Man Walking: Welcome to the US Economy
Paul Craig Roberts
How the Feds Imprison the Innocent
Harry Browne
Ireland Says, "Yes, Please"
Sara Mann
My Little Town: Nothin' But the Dead and Dyin'
Omar Barghouti
Dissolve the Palestinian Authority
Shamus Cooke
A Jobless Recovery?
Brenda Norrell
A Dirty New Low for Peabody Coal
Fred Gardner
Situation NORML:
Reconciling Medical Pot Use and Legalization
Binoy Kampmark Copenhagen Blues: McChrystal and the Afghan Trap
Website of the Day
In Goldman Sachs We Trust?
October 2-4, 2009
Alexander Cockburn
Geezer Renditions
Saul Landau
News From Raul Castro
Diana Johnstone
After the German Elections:
Is Socialism Really Dead in Europe?
Greg Moses
Cramming for the Downside
William Blum
The Fall of the Berlin Wall: Another Cold War Myth
Brian Cloughley
Iran's Nuclear Program: Where's the Proof?
Russell Mokhiber
Welcome Back, Michael Moore
John Ross
Chomsky in Mexico
Ellen Brown
IMF Catapults From Shunned Agency to Global Central Bank
David Ker Thomson
Cop Shocks
David Macaray
The Audacity of Toyota
Gary Engler
Unions in a Rut
Robert Fantina
Meet the New Boss (Same as the Old Boss)
Lisa Stolarski / Naomi Archer
Pittsburgh: Still a (Coal) Company Town
Anthony Papa
Here is Your Chance to Help End the Failed War on Drugs
Joe Allen
The Good Wife:
Bad View of a Corrupt System
Harry Browne
Tarantino Scalps His Audience
Ron Jacobs
Collective Fiction
Charles R. Larson
Cultural Warriors: Austrialian Aboriginal Art Triennial
David Yearsley
Hanns Eisler's Great National Anthem for East Germany is Available: Make It America's
Poets' Basement
Taylor, Gardner and Landau
Website of the Weekend
Wrongful Convictions of Youth
|
Weekend Edition
November 6-8, 2009
Deaths Bring Whole Afghan Strategy Into Question
Friendly Fire
By PATRICK COCKBURN
I was in an office in Kabul this summer being lectured by a mid-ranking official about the successful work of the government. "Completely off the record, what do you really think of this government?" I asked him, not expecting a very interesting reply.
"So long as you promise not to reveal my identity, I can tell you that this government is made up of killers and crooks," answered the official with scarcely a pause. He gave some examples of government-inspired killings and corruption.
In this tradition of carefully calculated treachery, the shooting dead of five British soldiers by an Afghan policeman operating with them is hardly surprising. Afghan leaders have long been notorious for concealing their true loyalties and changing sides. But the potential political consequences are very serious. The US and British strategy to build up the Afghan security forces to as many as 400,000 may prove impossible because the state is too weak and too poor and commands the loyalty of too few Afghans.
The reputation of Afghans for always defeating their enemies is based in part on the speed with which they join the winner. The Taliban advances in the 1990s were notable less for military victories than local warlords defecting to them after receiving a large bribe. In the US war to overthrow the Taliban in 2001, the same process went into reverse as the CIA bought off the same warlords who then sent their men home without a fight.
Nor is this the first time that Western forces have been turned on by their Afghan colleagues. In Kunduz province north of Kabul earlier this summer, a policeman shot eight of his colleagues and turned his police post over to the Taliban. An American military trainer was shot and wounded by one of the men he was training when he drank water in front of them when they were fasting during Ramadan.
The shaky loyalty of the Afghan police and, to a lesser extent, the army to their own government undermines US and British plans to hold the line against the Taliban while a strong local security force is built up. US political leaders speak of a force of 240,000 soldiers and 160,000 police to be trained in the next few years. In reality, though, nobody knows the current size of the Afghan security forces.
The army is supposedly 90,000 strong, but this figure may be grossly over-stated. "My educated guess is that such an army simply does not exist," writes Ann Jones, an American specialist on Afghanistan. "I knew men who repeatedly went through ANA [Afghan National Army] training to get the promised Kalashnikov and the pay. Then they went home for a while and often returned some weeks later to enlist under a different name."
Even so, the reputation of the army among ordinary Afghans is much better than that of the police. Some of these are paid a pittance for a very dangerous job. They are often stationed in vulnerable outposts and checkpoints. Their training is frequently almost non-existent. Before the presidential election in August, policemen being trained by a US security firm who had been receiving eight weeks' training saw this reduced to three weeks, so they could be sent to guard polling stations in southern Afghanistan.
More senior policemen can make money through aiding drug smugglers. General Aminullah Amarkhail, the former head of security at Kabul airport, who was sacked for his success in arresting heroin smugglers, says that the profits are such that jobs are bought and sold for large sums. "You have to pay $10,000 in bribes to get a job as a district police chief," he says, "and up to $150,000 to get a job as chief of police anywhere on the border – because there you can make a lot of money."
Patrick Cockburn is the Ihe author of "Muqtada: Muqtada Al-Sadr, the Shia Revival, and the Struggle for Iraq."
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Obama and Black America
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