A lot of people will make the point today that we should leave Afghanistan as soon as possible now that our top goal of going over there has been accomplished. This comes, ironically, eight years to the day after President Bush declared Mission Accomplished in regard to Iraq — and can anyone remind me what [...]

On September 22, in the District Court in Washington D.C., Judge Reggie B. Walton denied the habeas corpus petition of Tawfiq al-Bihani, consigning him to indefinite detention in Guantánamo, on an apparently legal basis, despite the fact that there is no evidence that he ever took up arms against anyone, or had any contact with anyone involved in preparing, facilitating or supporting acts of international terrorism. Judge Walton also ignored that despite being, at most, a lowly foot soldier, al-Bihani was held in a variety of secret CIA prisons in Afghanistan before his transfer to Guantánamo, where he was subjected to torture.

This story originally appeared at TomDispatch.com.

To receive TomDispatch in your inbox three times a week, click here.

The backers of the current counterinsurgency strategy in Afghanistan have reminded us again and again over the past year-and-a-half that their strategy can’t work without a legitimate government in Kabul. If that’s the case, even they should admit that their plan is sunk. As Brave New Foundation’s latest Rethink Afghanistan video shows, Afghanistan’s elections were just stolen. Again.

Details are beginning to emerge in the death of an Afghan prisoner on Sunday night. According to ISAF, a US soldier is in custody and a criminal investigation is underway. Hamid Karzai issued a short statement calling the death a killing by coalition forces. The New York Times recounts that one version of the story suggests the prisoner may have been trying to escape, but other Afghans who were present at the prison disagree on that point.

A new report by George Soros’s Open Society Foundations corroborates earlier news stories on torture and cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment of prisoners by the U.S. forces at a secret prison within the Bagram complex near Kabul, Afghanistan. While the vast majority of the press have ignored it, one of the report’s “main findings” was that the abuse of prisoners is linked to use of the Army Field Manual’s Appendix M.

Just days after a new report (pdf) was released, providing further evidence that torture of detainees in Afghanistan continues at the “secret” site at Bagram Air Base, Reuters informs us that a detainee in NATO custody has been “found dead” in his cell.

What do you think will be in this next batch of documents expected to be released by Wikileaks this week??

The Nobel Peace prize has been awarded for many different people and for many different reasons, but there appears to be one area the committee is reluctant to go.

Cross posted from Pruning Shears.

This story originally appeared at TomDispatch.com.

To receive TomDispatch in your inbox three times a week, click here.