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Have we forgotten Afghanistan? {why?}
national |
anti-war / imperialism |
opinion/analysis
Saturday September 27, 2003 12:26 by redjade
{ by redjade }
http://redjade.alturl.com
27 Sept Poster on Dublin Streets Have we forgotten Afghanistan?
The US/UK and others invaded it shortly after September 11 2001, made promises of rebuilding (building?) it with a massive 'Martial Plan', democracy and human rights for all (especially women) and so on.
The Afghan 'government' installed now barely has legitimacy, is barely funded, the rights of women (as well as others) are barely protected and much of the country-side has been ceded over to the same warlords that controlled the country before the war. And, lest we forget, Osama is still not captured and has been reported to be living in the south.
The occupying powers have not just failed in their mission, but have purposely neglected it.
There are more US Troops in Afghanistan than at the height of the invasion, it has become a tragic Soviet-styled endless war, turned on civilians. But it no longer makes the headlines that Iraq does today.
The IAWM/PANA/NGOPA Demonstration today, as you will notice from the street poster, does not mention Afghanistan. Why is this?
Have those of us on the streets protesting America's World War III forgotten Afghanistan as much as Bush and Blair?
As Afghanistan has disappeared from TV screens and newspaper headlines, is this a simple case of 'out of sight - out of mind'? Or something else?
your thoughts, please.
-- -- -- links and quotes below -- -- --
What good friends left behind
John Pilger
http://www.guardian.co.uk/afghanistan/story/0,1284,1044925,00.html
At the Labour party conference following the September 11 attacks, Tony Blair said memorably: "To the Afghan people, we make this commitment. We will not walk away... If the Taliban regime changes, we will work with you to make sure its successor is one that is broadbased, that unites all ethnic groups and offers some way out of the poverty that is your miserable existence." He was echoing George Bush, who had said a few days earlier: "The oppressed people of Afghanistan will know the generosity of America and its allies. As we strike military targets, we will also drop food, medicine and supplies to the starving and suffering men and women and children of Afghanistan. The US is a friend of the Afghan people."
We met clandestinely and she wore a veil to disguise her identity. Marina is not her real name.
"Two girls who went to school without their burkas were killed and their dead bodies were put in front of their houses," she said. "Last month, 35 women jumped into a river along with their children and died, just to save themselves from commanders on a rampage of rape. That is Afghanistan today; the Taliban and the warlords of the Northern Alliance are two faces of the same coin. For America, it's a Frankenstein story - you make a monster and the monster goes against you. If America had not built up these warlords, Osama bin Laden and all the fundamentalist forces in Afghanistan during the Russian invasion, they would not have attacked the master on September 11 2001."
Afghanistan's tragedy exemplifies the maxim of western power - that third world countries are regarded and dealt with strictly in terms of their usefulness to "us". The ruthlessness and hypocrisy this requires is imprinted on Afghanistan's modern history.
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Remember Afghanistan?
Tamim Ansary
http://www.tompaine.com/feature2.cfm/ID/8979
Afghanistan rarely makes front-page headlines anymore. American combat there officially ended on January 10, 2002, when the Taliban fled Kabul. Yet, since that day, American troops have sustained six times as many casualties as during the war. Today, 12,500 'coalition' troops are stationed in Afghanistan, and they include 10,000 Americans. Major battles have erupted in the country every month since June.
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Talk is cheap, a Marshall Plan isn't
http://www.dodgeglobe.com/stories/080603/opi_0806030008.shtml
''In Afghanistan, between 2001 and today, the United States has committed about $2 billion in assistance to the Afghan people.''
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Bush Will Seek $87 Billion for Iraq
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=578&ncid=578&e=1&u=/nm/20030907/ts_nm/iraq_dc
President Bush will announce on Sunday night that he plans to ask Congress for $87 billion to fund the U.S. military deployment in Iraq and pay for reconstruction, a Republican source said.
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What Could $87 Billion Pay For...
Matthew Rothschild
''Or if you look at the crying social needs of the country, $87 billion is worth two years of unemployment benefits to all who are out of work.
It's enough to pay 3.3 million people who have lost jobs a year's salary of $26,000. On drug coverage, $87 billion would cover not just one year but three years of the President's proposal.
On education, $87 billion is 87 times greater than the amount the federal government spends on after school programs, and nine times what it spends on special education. $87 billion is more than 17 times what the federal government spends for state children's health insurance programs, and about 10 times what it would cost to fully fund Headstart.''
- - -
Is Fraud Involved?
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines03/0918-10.htm
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Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan
http://www.rawa.org/
Amidst the nightmare, troops and police loyal to Afghan political and military figures have taken over most of the country's major cities and villages. They invade private homes, usually at night, to rob and assault civilians, hold residents hostage, terrorise them with weapons, steal their valuables and sometimes rape women and girls.
Outside their homes, under the threat of beatings, arrest, torture and ransom, Afghans face extortion on the roads and at proliferating official and unofficial checkpoints, as do shopkeepers in the market place. The rape of women, girls and boys is common but seldom reported.
The liberty for Afghans promised by Washington at the 2003 constitutional loya jirga [which constructed the current Kabul regime] — and supposed to be extended following the June 2004 national election — appears doomed as high-level officials in Kabul and warlord commanders in the south-east intimidate journalists and women's rights activists into silence. Those attempting to create political parties or non-government organisations are confronted with death threats and/or arrest.
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Photos
http://homepage.mac.com/benhammersley/PhotoAlbum3.html
RAWA Photos
http://www.rawa.org/gallery.html
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In Dublin, now - go see the exhibition....
Paul Seawright: hidden
18 September – 30 November 2003
http://www.modernart.ie/News/CurrentExhibitions.asp
This exhibition comprises 10 large format photographs, created by Paul Seawright in response to his recent travels in Afghanistan. In June 2002, Seawright was commissioned by the Imperial War Museum, London, to travel to Afghanistan to investigate landscapes that had been contaminated with exploded mines and to create works in response to his experience. Seawright avoids the exotic vision of Afghanistan as the spectacle of ruins portrayed by the media. His photographs are sparse and understated, silent and depopulated, more concerned with the underlying causes of war than with the visible scars left behind.
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Comments (15 of 15)
Jump To Comment: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15I heard on the news today that the Afgani state has said the al-Q no longer exist in their country. Directly contradicting the US who still maintain there is al-Q operating in afaganistan.
What are the chances of that?
i was glad to see palestine being put onb the posters along side iraq but forgot about afghanistan
to include afghanistan and in the next posters and include it in all debates on the war aswell
what can be done ? Each war adds another cause, and to tie them all together under some silly chant of no to neoliberalism in the hope that someone will listen isn't good enough. We must tackle each take them as individual cases that obviosly have the same cause and maybe a common long term solution. a once off protest to allow us feel that at least we did our bit won't work. This rant now is almost approaching the stage of how to reinvent the wheel, but maybe we have adopted the wrong approach all along. The solution - i just don't know, but we can't go down the road some have and used these issues as political oportunism and forget them when they are not remembered by the masses( please don't makee this sectarian it isn't ). Maybe an information group on indymedia for each issue might help so we can collect issues as they happen and post them so at least all on this forum know its happening and make these an issue on theleft at least. the left is as guilty as the right for forgetting these people as well as the dire situation in the Congo where we largely urged for no western intervention but failed to offer any real solution save a revolution( which is impossible ). we then forget them save the odd article save the odd rant saying who's at fault. we all know who's at fault we need something that plausible and realistic. This is not to say we can't be "revolutionary" but we can't wait for our revolution or democrtic socialist goverment when 4 million people have died in the congo's several civil war since 1998
Maybe we can try some new approach to at least keeping ourselves informed it might be a start
ZNet (at the URL below) has a load of IssueWatch areas of their site, to address exactly this (e.g. AfghanistanWatch, WTO-watch, and SouthAfricaWatch).
world war 4.... it's world war 4... no.3 was the Cold War...
Oct 7th 2001 was when the US started carpet bombing Afghanistan. thousands of innocent people were killed and more lost their homes and livelihoods.
The 2nd Anniversary is coming up soon, and we should do something to mark it, whether a vigil at US embassy or floating peace lanterns down the Liffey, Dodder,Shannon or Lee. - similar to the marking of Sept 11th in Limerick.
You are talking out your ARSE!!! Carpet bombing went out with Hitler!Do you know even What it is??Or is it just an emotive term you like to use?
PS be intrested to see the figures of "thousands of Afghani dead". Care to quote a independant source?
US bombers did carpet bomb Afghanistan, incinerating as many of their Norther Alliance allies as Taliban, and probably an equal amount of goat-herders... they all look the same from so far up... The notorious "Daisy-Cutter" was the ordinance of choice, dropping thousand of tons of high-incendiary before hauling out even the first 'smart-bombs' or bunker-busters... innocent people were for certain caught in the bombing zones, but who can count piles of ashes? US estimates of civilian casualties of the first assaults are roughly 4000... a conservative estimate... but a good gauge of the regard Americans have for the lives of foreign people is of the massive disparity in aid given to the Afghani people in comparison to World Trade Center victims and survivors...
The MOAB is the new bomb to watch out for... the daisy-cutter times a hundred... and can pack the punch of a Hiroshima while still remaining in the category of conventional weapon... the MOAB ("Mother Of All Bombs") creates a vacuum and can pop the eyes out of the skull and pull the intestines out of the ass of anyone standing within 10kilometers of the blast... there were a couple of dozen shipped out to Iraq before the invasion but unknown wether or not it was used... reports did trickle out of massive mushroom clouds near to where certain Republican Guard divisions disappeared, disintigrated, or disolved...
http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/systems/munitions/moab.htm
http://www.defenselink.mil/news/Mar2003/b03112003_bt110-03.html
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2001/nov2001/afg-n12.shtml
http://www.hinduonnet.com/thehindu/2001/11/01/stories/01010004.htm
i could go on...
but what's more interesting is Lonely Gunmans agenda, how does he come to think in such a warped way? who is he? how can anybody possibly be so narrow-brained and gullible or is he just seeking to get a rise out of us? Okay, Lonely, I've posted a couple of official US government links in which they say they carpet bombed in Afghanistan... so where is your fucking head at?
Why are you lying? Since when is the Hindu Times an official government agency?
Sure, the US carpet bombed small, remote, uninhabited areas of Afghanistan. That's because Al Qaeda fighters were holed up there. Seems perfectly acceptable to me to use a Daisycutter in those circumstances.
"Sure, the US carpet bombed small, remote, uninhabited areas of Afghanistan. That's because Al Qaeda fighters were holed up there." You fucking dimwit.... that argument in itself is stark proof of your twisted reasoning and a brilliant example of a typical right-wing oxymoron.
The second link is for the official US Dept of Defense... if you cared to notice... which you didn't. The Hindu Times, I must contest, is one of the largets circulars for a nation nearing a billion people, and much closer to the conflict than you perhaps have realized.
You're desperate... are you? To believe the shite spoonfed by US fundamentalist spin? Why can't you take the first step and acknowledge your denial? Do you think IMC is the only place where people around the world are struggling to find the truth? Does this threaten you so much?
This site has been giving good coverage of the what's happening in Afghanistan over the last 2 years.
Also buried in there is a report up to June 2002 on the number of 'coalition' casualities. It's a totally different picture to the Disney version that we are getting. As always the number of dead Afghans exceeds coalition ones by at least 10 to 1 or even as high as 100 to 1.
Checkout
http://www.jihadunspun.net/newsarchive/
There's still no security in Afghanistan. I've lived there for the past 6 months, and things have only deteriorated in that time. Most days you can't even leave the compound if you're in Kabul. Outside Kabul, law and order is dictated by the local commanders, etc, etc. While central government is trying to disarm the commanders, the US army is giving them weapons and hiring them to provide security to their troops!
Tell us more, man!
Write an article and fill us in... your P.O.V., ... give us the lowdown and hold the frills...