Afghanistan

Danilo Zak 3-16-2023
An illustration of pairs of migrants, depicted in shades of black and white and grey, wearing backpacks and walking in a line, superimposed over an in-color American flag.

Marcos Silva / iStock

IN 2016, PEOPLE of faith in the city of Billings, Mont., gathered to call for their community to get more involved in resettling refugees. With growing violence, persecution, and strife around the world and a record number of people forced to flee their homes, this community had the heart to help.

But the closest refugee resettlement office in the state was in Missoula, a 345-mile road trip west on I-90. The United States traditionally requires refugees to be resettled with families and relatives or close to these resettlement sites, which help new arrivals land on their feet and access needed services. For Billings — and for many other like-minded communities across the country — it was a logistical challenge to participate in the work of welcome.

Earlier this year, that changed. On Jan. 19, the Biden administration launched Welcome Corps, a new initiative giving everyday Americans the opportunity to sponsor refugees. Groups of at least five can now apply to form “private sponsorship groups,” which are responsible for welcoming refugee newcomers into their communities. These groups agree to assist in providing initial housing; as well as support access to health care, school enrollment, and employment opportunities; and otherwise engage directly in the life-changing work of refugee resettlement.

Ali McCadden 10-22-2021

Afghan refugees watch a soccer match near the U.S. Army base where they are staying in Fort McCoy, Wisc., on Sept. 30. Barbara Davidson/Pool via REUTERS

In a hearing on Capitol Hill last week, leaders from humanitarian nonprofits and resettlement agencies asked the House Homeland Security Committee to pressure the Biden administration to do more to help resettle evacuated Afghans into U.S. communities.

Their demands come as thousands of Afghans who had initially been housed at U.S. military bases in Virginia, Wisconsin, Texas, New Jersey, New Mexico, and Indiana are moving into communities in the United States. At least an additional 55,000 Afghans remain at the military bases.

David Cortright 10-20-2021
Afghan men stand before a concrete wall topped with barbed wire and a U.S. soldier

U.S. soldiers aim at a man who tried to climb the wall at Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul, Afghanistan / Jim Huylebroek / The New York Times

“I GRADUATED FROM university in 1968. I was drafted immediately. I had not really thought much about the war, but the more I talked to the guys who were coming back from Vietnam, the more I realized that this thing was terribly wrong. I began to think of the Vietnamese forces as liberation forces trying to free their country from foreign invasion—we were the invaders.

I went through a crisis of conscience. I saw a news report about soldiers who were speaking out against the war. I thought to myself, I can do that. I began to organize among soldiers in the barracks. We submitted a petition signed by 1,300 active-duty service members that was published in The New York Times.

The basis of my commitment to activism is faith: the belief that our role in life is to serve others, to overcome suffering and injustice, especially war, which to me, is the greatest sin."

Da’Shawn Mosley 9-23-2021
Awalmir and Riley eat a meal on the floor of the living room

Image from United States of Al

I WOULDN'T WISH on anyone the narrative dilemma facing the writers of United States of Al. The CBS show is a buddy comedy about a young Afghan man who finally gets a visa to come to the U.S., thanks to a Marine, Riley, for whom he was an interpreter during the Afghanistan War, whose life he saved, and with whom he’s living in the States. But United States of Al’s second season, with an Oct. 7 premiere, may need to encompass even more grief than its predecessor. The U.S. has withdrawn from Afghanistan, and the Taliban has taken over. We’ve seen the video of Afghan people trying to hold on to a U.S. military plane as it takes off, the clip ending right before some of them fall. Human remains were later found in the plane’s wheel well. What will happen when United States of Al’s protagonist sees that video?

Illustration of three raised fists emerging from shirt sleeves in the colors of the flag of Afghanistan

Illustration by Michael George Haddad

AFGHANISTAN HAS BEEN in conflict for more than 40 years. The former Soviet Union sent in more than 150,000 troops on Christmas Eve 1979 and left 20 years later. The U.S. began a massive bombing campaign in October 2001, the first stage of the war to oust the Taliban. Now, 20 years later, the U.S. has withdrawn the last American troops. It is hard to find a single Afghan, including myself, who hasn’t been a victim of the ongoing conflict.

As Afghans know, parties in these battles change, but the outcomes—devastation and killings—remain the same. Ordinary Afghans, as we have seen with the recent Taliban resurgence, pay an immeasurable price. They are killed, bombed, displaced, and disabled. However, the voices of these ordinary people are rarely heard. Perhaps they no longer raise their voices. What speaks loudly is their pain and sorrow.

Despite numerous formulas and prescriptions for ending bloodshed and oppression in Afghanistan, violence remains. Most solutions were formulated by the elite class. They are the ones in the driver’s seat. They make decisions as they please. The wishes of ordinary Afghans are nowhere to be found.

 

Mitchell Atencio 9-02-2021

A soldier stands guard at Kandahar Air Base in Afghanistan on December 8, 2013. REUTERS/Mark Wilson/Pool.

After 20 years of war and violence under four different presidents — and the deaths of more than 172,000 people — the United States withdrew its last troops from Afghanistan on Monday.

For many, ending the war in Afghanistan seems like a step toward a more peaceful future. But even in the process of ending a war, the United States has relied on violence to enforce its will.

President Joe Biden, Washington D.C. Photo by Trevor Hunnicutt via Reuters

If the United States is to take up any metaphoric role in this period of Israel’s history represented in Isaiah 6, we are the Assyrians, content to blast our way into any country we like, leaving wreckage and destruction in our wake. Like the Assyrians, my country shows no concern for how its vengeance turns the lives of ordinary people to ash.

Josiah R. Daniels 8-27-2021

Oil painting of Thelonious Monk by Roman Nogin

The only solution to this noisy world is good noise from people who are attuned to the world’s hurt.

An internally displaced Afghan girl carries a child near their shelter at a refugee camp on the outskirts of Kabul, Afghanistan June 20, 2019. REUTERS/Stringer/File Photo

We weep for the places where war leads to war.
We pray for your hand there to heal and restore!
Bless all who seek justice and peace as your way.
We pray for Afghanistan’s people today.

Danté Stewart 8-19-2021

A man searches the site of a collapsed hotel after Saturday's 7.2 magnitude quake, in Les Cayes, Haiti Aug. 16, 2021. REUTERS/Ricardo Arduengo

The earth quakes. It rumbles. It trembles, sort of like a roar, a shiver. I didn’t see it; I’ve never experienced it, but I heard the news. “1,900+ Haitians are believed to be dead,” the faint voice of the news reporter says over my car radio, “and hundreds are believed to be missing.”

Another headline reads: “The latest on Afghanistan as Taliban take charge.”

Another: “13-year-old Mississippi girl dies of COVID-19.”

Gina Ciliberto 8-16-2021

President Joe Biden delivers remarks on the crisis in Afghanistan during a speech in the East Room at the White House in Washington, D.C., August 16, 2021. REUTERS/Leah Millis

On Monday, as the Taliban took over many parts of Afghanistan, President Joe Biden announced the United States intends to “transport out thousands of American citizens and civilian personnel,” as well as Afghans who are eligible for Special Immigrant Visas (SIV) and their families.

Rishika Pardikar 9-09-2019

Foreign troops with NATO-led Resolute Support Mission investigate a suicide attack in Kabul, September 5, 2019. REUTERS/Omar Sobhani

As the U.S. grows closer to a peace deal with the Taliban and prepares to withdraw 5,000 troops from Afghanistan, experts remind us that until the civilian death toll stops, peace on the ground remains a dream.

Rishika Pardikar 2-20-2019

"The thing I'm most worried about is that if [the Taliban] return, I'll not be able to continue playing music," said Maram Atayee, a 16-year-old pianist who attends music school in Kabul.  REUTERS/Mohammad Ismail

Late last month, it was reported that the U.S. and the Taliban have agreed in principle to the framework of a deal that could potentially end the 17-year war that began in 2001 when the U.S., with the strength of NATO forces, invaded and began occupying Afghanistan. In the lead up to war, leaders cited concerns about human rights, specifically women’s rights.

Kathy Kelly 6-08-2017

Without any input from the centralized government, the Afghan Peace Volunteers build community and share resources. Within Kabul, they arrange inter-ethnic activities and projects, distribute food, educate children, and manufacture heavy blankets to help families survive the harsh winters. They risk their lives to relate with people whom they are told are their enemies.

Abby Olcese 5-31-2017

Image via War Machine Facebook Page

The biggest issue War Machine faces is that satire seems to be the wrong track for the movie to take. War and soldiers are difficult subjects to make funny. The best that writer-director Michôd can manage is to provide the stars — like Pitt and his military cohort — with a couple of strange quirks to color their performances. Sometimes these characterizations feel lazy, other times like the actors are trying too hard. The humor, when it’s there, feels forced.

A woman sits outside a hospital after a blast in Kabul, Afghanistan May 31, 2017.REUTERS/Mohammad Ismail
 

Basir Mujahid, a spokesman for city police, said the explosives were hidden in a sewage truck. He also suggested that the German embassy might not have been the target of the blast, which sent towering clouds of black smoke into the sky near the presidential palace.

Tom Heneghan 3-17-2017

Image via RNS/Screenshot from CNN

With his anti-Muslim rhetoric and planned travel bans, you’d think President Trump would be a favorite target for Islamic State’s propaganda. The jihadist caliphate in Syria and Iraq must be pulling out all the stops to slam him as the epitome of Islamophobia.

Well, think again. The extremist group that Trump vows to “totally obliterate” has hardly printed or broadcast a word about him since before the November election. The caliphate’s Ministry of Media acts almost as if he didn’t exist.

Alexandra Markovich 11-03-2016

Image via RNS/Reuters/Alkis Konstantinidis/File Photo

A population exchange with Turkey after World War I brought in over a million ethnic Greeks as refugees. When the new migration crisis began last year, there was empathy for the new arrivals, with many Greeks recalling what their grandparents went through.

But even given that proud history, academics and volunteers fear that the warm welcome of the last year could wear thin, when the refugees start to integrate in a nation that has long resisted a multifaith identity.

Image via RNS/Smithsonian

The exhibit is not intended as commentary on today’s politics, its organizers said. Work started on the project six years ago, before sharp rises in Islamophobic rhetoric and violence in the U.S. and Europe, and before Muslim immigration and culture became a flashpoint in American and European politics.

But the Smithsonian is not sorry for the timing, and hopes the exhibit can help quell fears of Islam and its followers.

A memorial outside The Stonewall Inn. Image via REUTERS/Shannon Stapleton/RNS

Growing up in the seventies, I never questioned my parents’ love for their adopted homeland.

And yet as immigrants from Argentina, there were things they did not love: rock and roll music, and teenagers having sex.