By Frank Brodhead
Does this Official Story make sense to you? According to the Official Story, sometime in the middle of last year a simple shopkeeper from Quetta (Pakistan) passed himself off as a high-ranking member of the Taliban and persuaded someone to introduce him to someone who would put him into contact with NATO command in Afghanistan. Then, “on behalf of the Taliban,” he had at least three “negotiating sessions,” possibly including one attended by President Karzai himself, in which he put forth very accommodating terms upon which the war in Afghanistan could be settled.

By Patrick Kennelly
2014 marks the deadliest year in Afghanistan for civilians, fighters, and foreigners. The situation has reached a new low as the myth of the Afghan state continues. Thirteen years into America's longest war, the international community argues that Afghanistan is growing stronger, despite nearly all indicators suggesting otherwise.

By Pam Bailey
Throughout my stay in Pakistan, I have been noting similarities in the challenges faced by the people in the frontier regions here and in Gaza. Both populations are under daily threat by foreign drones (U.S. vs. Israel), the movement of both groups is tightly controlled, and both peoples are judged by the world based on internal factions branded as "extremist."

By David Swanson
Before Tahrir Square happened almost nobody predicted that President Hosni Mubarak would be forced out of office by a movement that didn't pick up a gun. Had President Barack Obama expected that outcome, he might have publicly backed Mubarak's departure before, rather than after, Mubarak stepped down.

by David Swanson, Truthout
Kabul, Afghanistan
The United States, on the verge of shutting down its own government for lack of funds, just forked over another $50 million for a peace jirga (or council) to negotiate peace in Afghanistan or at least sponsor an upcoming conference in the United Arab Emirates and—perhaps more so—bribe Taliban fighters to temporarily stop fighting.

KABUL, AFGHANISTAN 
In honor of 4 April, 1967, and 4 April, 1968, when Martin Luther King, Jr., spoke out against war and when he was killed, I spent my first full day in Afghanistan on 4 April, 2011, avoiding violence and discussing nonviolent activism with those practicing it here.