Canada-Afghanistan Solidarity Committee

The Canada-Afghanistan Solidarity Committee earns a very favourable review today in Progress, the journal of principled liberal-left thinkers and writers in the UK Labour Party.  The review appears in Alan Johnson's Progressive Internationalism column, and Johnson argues for the creation of a British version of CASC.

Excellent idea.

The Afghan Canadian Community Center (ACCC) is a post-secondary school that provides students in Kandahar, primarily young women, with employment-oriented education in business management, Information Technology, English and health care. Approximately 700 female and male students are presently enrolled at the ACCC. Female students attend at no charge, while a small group of male students pay a modest fee to offset the cost of their instruction. The ACCC also operates an Internet lab that is available to women in the community at no charge.

CASC Member Tylere Couture writes about a "typical day inside the wire" in this excellent essay, his latest dispatch from Kandahar. Among other things, one project Tylere discusses raises a very intriguing possibility.

Pakistan must cut its ties with the Taliban, argues Ahmed Rashid, a Pakistani expert on the Taliban in a recent article in the International Herald Tribune. Without this essential step, the mission to help bring Afghanistan back from the brink will face insurmountable challenges. Read the article below.

A prophetic voice on Taliban calls out again

Solidarity Committee member Tylere Couture, pictured here with some Kandahar schoolkids, reports on an emotionally-draining day:

"I knew that a CIMIC patrol had hit an improvised explosive device (IED) out in Zhari or Panjwai, two of the more volatile districts in the province, and that the vehicle stuck was a LAV.? . .When I heard this, my thoughts immediately began to spin."

Increasing suicide attacks