The Taliban used gunfire, beatings and arrests to disperse scores of protesters who marched through Kabul on Sept. 7—the largest demonstration the Afghan capital has seen since the militant group seized power last month. Videos shared on social media showed activists shouting in support of resistance fighters in the Panjshir Valley—and chanting against Pakistan, which they view as backing the Taliban. In the footage, protesters can be heard shouting "Death to Pakistan" as they marched toward the presidential palace. (Khaama, CNN)

The Taliban on Sept. 6 announced that they have taken the Panjshir Valley from the incipient National Resistance Front of Afghanistan (NRFA). In an audio statement from an undisclosed location, NRFA leader Ahamd Masoud pledged to carry on the fight, and called upon Afghans to launch a national uprising against the Taliban. Another NRFA leader, Fahmi Dashti, was reported killed in the battle for the Valley. News sources in India claimed he met his death in a targeted drone strike launched by Pakistan. (Khaama, NDTV, WION, WaPo)

Women marched in Afghanistan's northern city of Mazar-e-Sharif Sept. 6, demanding that their rights be protected and their voices heard in the new government now being formed. Signs read  "We want political participation at all levels." They also declared that they would refuse to take the burqa, the full-body covering that was compulsory for women the last time that the Taliban were in power. Thus far, officials of the Taliban's self-declared "Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan" have only demanded that women wear the abaya in public—a less restrictive covering that may be worn with either a niqab or hijab.

Indian-administered Kashmir was plunged back into internet darkness Sept. 2 as India's central authorities enforced lockdowns and a news blackout following the death of Syed Ali Geelani, a prominent separatist leader. Geelani, 91, died at his home the day before. His body was immediately seized by authorities, and buried in a quiet funeral held under harsh restrictions. His son, Naseem Geelani, said the family had planned to bury him at the main martyrs' cemetery in Srinagar, as specified in his will, but was not allowed to do so. Police also charged family members under an anti-terrorism law for wrapping his body in the Pakistani flag and raising anti-India slogans. Kashmir spent months without internet following an August 2019 crackdown. High-speed mobile internet was only restored earlier this year. (TNH, AP, The Guardian)

In Episode 87 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg calls out revisionist online propaganda telling us (for instance) that Ronald Reagan in 1985 called the Taliban the "equivalent of America's Founding Fathers"—when the Taliban actually didn't even exist back then, and he actually said that about the Nicaraguan Contras. Meanwhile, the more idiotic sectors of the "anti-imperialist" left, which proclaimed "Hail Red Army in Afghanistan" during the Soviet intervention 40 years ago, are now taking unabashed glee at the Taliban takeover. Rather than viewing the Afghan people as pawns on the geopolitical chessboard or fodder for cheap propaganda, Weinberg calls for active solidarity with groups like the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan (RAWA), and the feminists and secularists who have chosen to stay behind and continue speaking out—at great risk to themselves. Listen on SoundCloud or via Patreon.

Local indigenous peoples and their environmentalist supporters have rallied outside the federal courthouse in Reno, Nev., as they await a decision on their request for an injunction to stop the Thacker Pass Lithium Mine Project, set to be developed on public lands within the ancestral territory of the Paiute and Shoshone. Opponents have also established a protest camp near the mine site. If the injunction is denied, Lithium Nevada, a subsidiary of Canada-based Lithium Americas, will be able to move ahead with an archaeological survey in preparation for breaking ground on the mine. 

The Taliban killed an Afghan folk musician Aug. 29, days after stating that they would ban music from being played in public places. Fawad Andarabi was shot dead by Taliban fighters who arrived at his farm in the village of Kishnabad, Andarab district, in the southern part of Baghlan province. The district is near the Panjshir Valley that harbors a resistance force rejecting Taliban rule. Four days earlier, Taliban spokesperson Zabihullah Mujahid told the New York Times: "Music is forbidden in Islam, but we're hoping that we can persuade people not to do such things, instead of pressuring them." 

In Episode 86 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg returns to the book The Responsibility to Protect in Libya and Syria: Mass Atrocities, Human Protection, and International Law by Syrian American legal scholar Yasmine Nahlawi, exploring applicability of its analysis to the current disaster in Afghanistan. This discussion is taken up at the request of Eric Laursen, author of The Duty to Stand Aside: Nineteen Eighty-Four and the Wartime Quarrel of George Orwell and Alex Comfort. Laursen is the first to take up the CounterVortex special offer, by which new Patreon subscribers get to choose a topic for exploration on the podcast. When do we have a responsibility to protect, and when do we have a duty to stand aside, and how can these imperatives be reconciled? Listen on SoundCloud or via Patreon.