Afghanistan Follow

THE devastating bomb attacks in Saudi Arabia and Morocco shattered 75 lives, and with them the great lie at the heart of George Bush's "war on terror". We were told the wars against Afghanistan and Iraq would "make the world a safer place". The US government, and Blair, have all but abandoned the pretence that invading Iraq was about weapons of mass destruction. Instead, Bush says Saddam Hussein was a key player in the 11 September 2001 attacks.

SOME 3,000 people took to the streets of the Afghan capital, Kabul, last week in the first demonstration against the US military occupation of their country. The protest took place just weeks after the world's media began broadcasting scenes of similar protests in Iraq. US forces have remained in Afghanistan since the end of the one-sided war there 18 months ago.

"THERE ARE schools, but there's no equipment in them. The shops are open, but there is nothing on the shelves. Afghanistan is a lawless country."

Tony Blair has backed the US in three major wars. Andrew Stone compares their claims with reality.

THE INVASION of Iraq is the third time in only six years that Tony Blair has sent British armed forces to war alongside the United States. Before Iraq were the wars in Afghanistan and the Balkans. And before those many can remember two more wars in which British forces have fought - the 1991 Gulf War and the 1982 Falklands War.

Bush claims he wants to liberate Iraq. Dragan Plavsic examines the experience of Serbia and Afghanistan.

GEORGE BUSH, Tony Blair, Donald Rumsfeld - and their media cheerleaders - said it was a "war crime" when captured US soldiers were shown on Iraqi TV. They talked of the Geneva convention. Bush and Blair are hypocrites. The US has held prisoners of war (PoWs) captured in Afghanistan for more than a year with no rights whatever. They have been held in cages, and subject to torture, at Camp X-Ray - the US base on Cuba.

TO JUSTIFY war in Afghanistan George Bush and Tony Blair claimed they would liberate the country's women. They even wheeled out their respective wives, Laura Bush and Cherie Blair, to talk about how the war would end the oppression that Afghan women suffered. Yet a new report by the Human Rights Watch organisation reveals that Afghan women are now suffering mounting abuses and restrictions on their rights. "Women and girls are still being abused, harassed and threatened across Afghanistan, often by government and officials," says report author Zama Coursen-Neff.

DYNCORP is one of George Bush's favourite corporations. DynCorp backed Bush's election bid and gets most of its work from the US government. The company has been chosen to replace US special forces as the bodyguards for Afghan leader Hamid Karzai.

I SPENT two days last week with the asylum seekers sheltering in a disused church in Calais. Everybody should know the truth about their lives. The 120 people involved were made up of 85 Iraqi Kurds and 35 Afghans. The Iraqis were bitterly aware of the hypocrisy of governments that are prepared to launch a war against "tyrant Saddam Hussein" but act in the most brutal fashion towards people who have fled Iraq.

The Afghan tragedy continues.

Bush's battalion of blunderers THE US might have the most sophisticated military hardware in the world, but its military intelligence remains a contradiction in terms. The US army's 11th Psychological Operations Battalion, known as "psy-ops", is just back from Afghanistan and preparing for Iraq. Its job is to sell "brand America" and undermine enemy morale.