Samhain will be particularly poignant this year for Wiccans who are members or veterans of the US military as they process the end of the 20-year war in Afghanistan.
Afghan women march to demand their rights under Taliban rule during a demonstration near the former Women’s Affairs Ministry building in Kabul.
(AP Photo)
How can we reconcile competing claims that colonialism of any kind is detrimental with the view that Afghanistan has been failed by the West?
A woman waves a Canadian flag as the frigate HMCS Halifax heads from the harbour in Halifax in January 2021 to start a six-month deployment in the Mediterranean Sea to assist in NATO counter-terrorism patrols.
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Andrew Vaughan
Canada’s ‘fireproof house’ defence strategy is causing problems among its allies. When you are convinced you live in a gated community, the pressure to invest in alarms for your home disappears.
The rug designs tend to contain symbols – AK-47s, 9/11 and drones – that reflect an outsider’s understanding of war.
Kevin Sudeith, courtesy of WarRug.com
In a time of increasingly complex geopolitical entanglements and moral failings, these films articulate a yearning for unsullied heroism, effective leadership and appropriate responses to crises.
A Taliban fighter stands guard at Sarai Shahzada market in Kabul.
Wali Sabawoon/AP/AAP
The caretaker leader for Afghanistan represents a compromise candidate for Taliban factions, but his reactionary past has drawn concern over the fate of minority and women’s rights.
America’s political leaders rushed the nation into war just weeks after the Sept. 11 attacks, just like ancient Greeks and Romans did in response to similar traumatic events.
David Hume Kennerly/Getty Images
Ancient Athenians and Romans also let shared mass tragedies propel justifications for going to war – even when it wasn’t clear what that violence would solve.
Heading for the exit.
Brendan Smialowski/AFP via Getty Images
Following the completion of the US troop withdrawal from Afghanistan, Neta Crawford, the co-director of the Costs of War Project, reflects on 7,268 days of American involvement in the conflict.
Afghanistan has mineral resources that include precious gems and minerals such as copper and rare earth elements.
Majid Saeedi/Getty Images
Afghanistan has vast mineral resources that have long attracted interest from outside countries, but a lack of infrastructure and political instability means they’re unlikely to aid its economy now.
Here are some ways to support people from Afghanistan locally, nationally and overseas.
A U.S. Army soldier scans the irises of an Afghan civilian in 2012 as part of an effort by the military to collect biometric information from much of the Afghan population.
Jose Cabezas/AFP via GettyImages
The potential failure of the US military to protect information that can identify Afghan citizens raises questions about whether and how biometric data should be collected in war zones.
The US president inherited a situation with no good solution in Afghanistan, but the latest bombing will raise questions about his judgment and cloud his presidency.
The Taliban came to the fore during Afghanistan’s civil war that followed the Soviet pullout of 1989.
Robert Nickelsberg/Getty Images
Afghanistan has been a gravy train for private security companies, but their local employees now find themselves in a dangerous no-man’s-land.
U.S. soldiers stand guard along the perimeter of the international airport in Kabul, Afghanistan. Hundreds of Western nationals and Afghan workers have been flown to safety since the Taliban reasserted control over the country, but still in hiding are Afghans who tried to build a fledgling democracy.
(AP Photo/Shekib Rahmani)
The Vietnam War was the defining issue for Joe Biden’s generation. His botched withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan could be the defining act of his presidency.
Unconquered: the people of the Panjshir Valley have successfully fought off invaders since the Soviet Union in the early 1980s.
EPA-EFE/Hedayatullah Amid