I first heard of this book’s young author on my favorite radio show, NPR’s This American Life. Seventeen year old Said Hyder Akbar had gone to join his father in Afghanistan in the summer of 2002 and he’d taken recording equipment to record a radio documentary of his trip. It was fascinating. The next summer he went back and recorded another documentary for This American Life. It was at the end of this second show that I first heard of Come Back to Afghanistan, co-written with radio producer Susan Burton, which details his visits to Afghanistan in the summers of ‘02, ‘03 and ‘04.

Wes talks about Afghanistan in Newsweek International. A nice long article which will eventually be posted on SA, I'm sure. Meanwhile....enjoy.

What We Must Do Now
Success is possible. But make no mistake. We are not winning.

By Wesley K. Clark
Newsweek International

Oct. 2, 2006 issue - In the immediate aftermath of 9/11, U.S. forces achieved a rapid, high-tech victory over Afghanistan's terrorist-supporting Taliban government. Five years later, the Taliban is back. But this is a different fight. Not only Afghanistan but NATO itself is at risk.

Fingers are pointing. Washington didn't commit enough forces.

FIGHTING DEMS NEWS SERVICE

September 13, 2006
Vol. 1 No. 10
Published Weekly

THE ARTICLE SUMMARIES AND LINKS

Update:

Passaro seems to have had plenty of help in this. Four soldiers from the 82nd Airborne assisted Passaro, placing Abdul Wali in stress positions and holding him while Passaro beat him. Two more guards were aware of the proceedings. The statements they gave to the Army Criminal Investigation Command investigator who first looked into the case were not nearly as detailed and complete as their statements in the Federal court trial. The Raleigh N&O reported new details in a story today:

The 82nd Airborne soldiers' testimony helped convict Passaro of felony assault Thursday but also raised questions about why they didn't face charges as well. Not only could the four guards who assisted Passaro have been charged as accomplices, but all six of the guards who knew about the abuse could have been charged under military law with failing to report a crime, according to experts and witness testimony.

An investigator with the Army Criminal Investigation Command said he found the soldiers had done no wrong, but it appears based on the testimony during Passaro's trial that the soldiers were less forthcoming with that investigator than they were on the stand.

George Wysocki, a former Army investigator, testified that the soldiers never told him that they held Wali in the "iron chair" position during the interrogations. The iron chair -- an accepted technique among military interrogators at the time -- involves a detainee having his back against the wall and his legs bent as if sitting in a chair.

Wysocki said his inquiry could have led to court-martial charges against the soldiers. Based on what the soldiers told him at the time, Wysocki concluded: "There was no severe wrongdoing."

But at trial, Sgt. Kevin Gatten testified that he and another guard held Wali while Passaro smacked and kicked him. Gatten described the force of Passaro's blows as "just enough so that it was hard to hold him up."

In a statement to N&O reporters, Scott Silliman, executive director of Duke University's Center on Law, Ethics and National Security stated:

"You're asking a soldier to make a judgment call on a nonuniformed member operating ostensibly under different rules," he said. "You had military officers mixing with CIA and private contractors. Each one was marching to a different standard. That might have constituted sufficient confusion in the uniformed folks that they were hesitant to report it up."

Even so, Silliman said, every U.S. fighter, regardless of organizational affiliation, should use common sense.

"Beating somebody with a two-foot flashlight obviously violates any standard of law," he said. "If you think a crime is being committed, you should try to do something to stop it instead of standing by and allowing it to happen."

Given on September 12, 2005. Transcribed by Reg.

Thank you very much. It's great to be with you and thank you so much for that kind introduction, Dave, and for that warm welcome. Well,I'm very happy to be here.
I came in from Amsterdam at noon on a business meeting and I drove down from New York City this evening. And, I was in Amsterdam yesterday on business and people were, - we were all reflecting on the fact that it's been four years since the terrible events of September (pause) 11th. Four years. My Dutch friends, my Israeli friends that I was there for a business meeting with were all (in audible). And they were all expressing concern for our country, especially in the aftermath of the hurricane that struck the Gulf Coast and what seems to have been a discoordinated, uncoordinated, ineffective, slow, bewildering lack of responsiveness, which still hasn't been sorted out. But it created an image abroad of an America that somehow have lost the expertise and the leadership and the power to take care of its own people and to deal with its own future.