These two videos from the USA say about themselves:
“America’s Secret Afghan Prisons”: Investigation Unearths New US Torture Site, Abuse Allegations in Afghanistan.
From the BBC:
6 September 2011 Last updated at 14:22 GMTAfghan prisoner torture fears in UN report
By Quentin Sommerville BBC News, Kabul
The Nato-led mission in Afghanistan is considering suspending the transfer of detainees to several Afghan jails, following allegations of widespread torture, the BBC has learned.
The accusations came in an as-yet unpublished UN report, which describes how prisoners were beaten and in some cases given electric shocks.
It accuses some police commanders of running secret jails.
The jails are run by the Afghan police and intelligence service.
The international mission has met with National Directorate of Security (NDS) chiefs and warned them that it may stop transferring prisoners in seven provinces including Khost in the south-east, Takhar in the north and Herat in the West.
In Uruzgan and Kunduz provinces, transfers of prisoners to the police may be stopped because of similar worries of mistreatment.
The transfer of prisoners in restive Kandahar province has already ended.
One official from the International Stabilisation and Assistance Force (Isaf) described this as a major setback.
The Nato-led mission plans to bring foreign troops home, by handing more responsibility to Afghans. There are concerns that in some areas, Afghan security forces cannot be trusted.
Last year, Britain’s Ministry of Defence (MOD) agreed to halt the transfer of prisoners to NDS jails in Kabul, after a court ruled that they faced the risk of torture or serious mistreatment.
The US-led occupation force in Afghanistan confirmed on Tuesday that it has temporarily stopped transferring detainees to Afghan-run prisons following a leaked UN report that suggests inmates are routinely tortured: here.
Former Afghan translator, Malgarai Ahmadshah, claims the Canadian military was ‘subcontracting torture’ to the NDS; video here.
US-backed militias are killing, torturing and raping Afghan civilians with impunity, a New-York based rights group charged today: here.
US soldiers kill BBC journalist in Afghanistan: here.
A US soldier shot dead a BBC journalist in Afghanistan after mistaking him for a suicide bomber, according to a report released by Nato on Thursday: here.
Afghanistan Gets India, Iran, Canada Bids for Iron Ore: here.
Noam Chomsky: After 9/11, Was War the Only Option? Here.
CIA’s Push for Drone War Driven by Internal Needs: here.
Congress took a first step yesterday towards scaling back US government spending on the war in Afghanistan: here.
U.S. to build new massive prison in Bagram: here.
A Pakistani court has ordered its government to interview seven of the country’s nationals illegally detained by the US in Bagram, including one who was handed over by British forces: here.
West to blame for Afghan ‘disaster’
MALCOLM QUEKETT, The West Australian September 7, 2011, 2:20 am
Australian forces in Afghanistan were part of a disastrous western policy which propped up warlords and allowed corruption to flourish, an outspoken Afghani activist says.
Malalai Joya said that in the 10 years since the September 11 attacks on the US her country had gone “from the frying pan into the fire”.
Mrs Joya, 33, was elected to the Afghan Assembly after the Taliban were overthrown.
She caused a sensation when she denounced some members as warlords and criminals and was suspended from the Parliament in 2007.
She has lived in constant danger and survived assassination attempts.
Mrs Joya will address a conference at the University of WA on Sunday to mark the 10th anniversary of the terrorist attacks on the US.
She said yesterday the arrival of western forces had plunged Afghanistan into violence.
“Tens of thousands of innocent civilians have been killed, most of them women and children,” she said.
Intellectuals had been forced underground and life was a daily struggle for many people, particularly women.
“In the 10 years after the 9/11 tragedy unfortunately the Australian Government and NATO countries who have troops in Afghanistan have followed the wrong policy of the US,” she said.
“In the Taliban’s time we had only one enemy, the Taliban, but now we have three – occupation, warlords, Taliban.
“When the troops leave Afghanistan, when their governments stop arming the warlords, not negotiate with the Taliban, then our people will fight internal enemies.
“They say civil war will happen if the troops leave, but nobody is talking about today’s civil war.
“The future civil war they are worried about will not be more dangerous than the current civil war.
“If today they leave Afghanistan it is much better than tomorrow.”
Afghanistan would then need support from justice-loving people around the world, human rights organisations and intellectuals, not military occupiers, she said.
Ex-Blackwater contractor denied request to go to Afghanistan
By: ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: September 08, 2011
NORFOLK — A former Blackwater contractor sentenced to 3 years in prison in the shooting death of an unarmed Afghan civilian has lost his bid to return to Afghanistan for employment.
A federal judge in Norfolk refused to give Christopher Drotleff of Virginia Beach permission to leave the country.
Drotleff remains free while his attorneys appeal his sentencing in June on an involuntary manslaughter charge.
Drotleff’s attorney, Trey Kelleter, told The Virginian-Pilot on Wednesday that Drotleff understood the travel request was a long shot. Drotleff wanted to work for a government contractor laying concrete and fiber-optic cable and indicated he needed the work to support his family.
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