Julie Bruck: The Last Two Jews of Kabul
When his roommate finally expired at eighty,
Zebulon said he was relieved to be rid of Isaak.
The pair had held out in a decaying synagogue
under Mujahedeen, Taliban, Americans, more Taliban.
Farrah Hassen: End the Collective Punishment of Afghans
With innocent Afghans impoverished and starving, the U.S. must return money that’s rightfully theirs.
Richard Hoffman: Refugee
A man carries his door,
the door of his house,
because when the war is over
he is going home
Video: Zarlasht Halaimzai | What it’s like to be a war refugee
In this poignant, vital talk, Zarlasht Halaimzai articulates the lingering trauma of being expendable — and shares how belonging to a community can help bring back feelings of long-lost safety.
Richard Hoffman: The Road
the groves and orchards
poisoned, fathers and brothers tortured,
hope abandoned with the other heavy furniture
it isn’t much of a road, the future
Sharon Fagan McDermott: War
This intensity, this buildup
of noise—Help us! —an echo of an old human
refrain through the mad and fucked up timbres
of our human history.
Nan Levinson: The Antiwar Movement That Wasn’t Enough
The Wars We Couldn’t End
Tom Engelhardt: My Year and Welcome to It
A year of illness, death, mourning, and ever-increasing political chaos on a striking, if not unparalleled, scale threatens the American system as we’ve known it. Meanwhile, a new kind of weather threatens the world as we’ve known it.
Yifat Susskind: Three Lessons to Chart a Path Forward in Solidarity With Afghan Women
This time we can stand with Afghan women on their own terms, by asking them what they want and working hand-in-hand with them to support their leadership and meet their communities’ needs.
Majid Naficy: Kabul
But larks have not forgotten to fly
And grass still sprouts from the earth of Kabul
And rivers are replenished by the snows of Pamirs
And the groves of Samangan are filled with sounds of birds.
Medea Benjamin, Nicolas J.S. Davies: Waking from Our Post-9/11 nightmare
Our only hope for the future is to abandon the futile quest for hegemony and instead commit to peace, cooperative diplomacy, international law, and disarmament.
Tom Engelhardt: The Decline and Fall of the Roman… Whoops!… American Empire
What Really Matters in the U.S. of A.
David Bacon: At the end of this hated war, we need truth
The U.S. troop withdrawal from Afghanistan should force a reckoning with a long history of military intervention.
Ali A. Olomi: The history of the Taliban is crucial in understanding their success now – and also what might happen next
The rapid takeover of Afghanistan by the Taliban left many surprised. A key to understanding what is happening now – and what might take place next – is looking at the past and how the Taliban came to prominence.
Vox Populi 