Perhaps some thought the eightieth anniversary of that brutal battle would be a chance for both the Japanese and the Americans to recognize their terrible brutality towards the people of Okinawa.
We have an American president who has declared himself king while the legislative branch abdicates its oversight powers, and the judiciary grants immunity.
Defying the expectations of many Western commentators, the Afghan Taliban has proven entirely sincere in its pledge to shut down the local drug trade, in spite of the fact that it was also the largest source of income for the impoverished nation.
Senator Elizabeth Warren and other US lawmakers are demanding that the Pentagon stop its systematic undercounting of civilian deaths after more than two decades of the so-called Global War on Terrorism.
After decades of conflict and military occupations, Afghanistan has yet to emerge from its ongoing humanitarian crisis. The main culprits at this juncture are the poor governance of the ruling Taliban as well as the remarkably hostile policies of the United States and its allies, which are, in effect, waging economic warfare against one of the poorest nations on Earth.
As the United Nations asked the world for US$160 million in response to catastrophic flooding in Pakistan, Secretary-General Antonio Guterres also issued a broader warning about the human-caused climate emergency: “Let’s stop sleepwalking toward the destruction of our planet by climate change. Today, it’s Pakistan. Tomorrow, it could be your country.”
Pentagon contractors operating inside Afghanistan over the past two decades raked in nearly US$108 billion—funds that “were distributed and spent with a significant lack of transparency,” according to a new report. However, even this figure is just a fraction of the over US$14 trillion which the Pentagon spent in order to lose the war in Afghanistan.
As the tumultuous and controversial Tokyo Olympics came to an end, the world set its eyes on Beijing, where the Winter Olympics is to be held in just six months. The 2022 Games could become even more contentious than the event which just closed.
In order to achieve a lasting peace in Afghanistan, the United States needs to keep waging its longest-ever war there. That’s the conclusion of a report published Wednesday by the Afghanistan Study Group.
A roundup of the most significant news stories from Japan reported in the last half of January 2020.
