Opium, Rape & the American Way (Pt. 2 of 2)
“Afghanistan, after eight years of occupation, has become a world center for drugs,” said Malalai Joya (see yesterdays post). “The drug lords are the only ones with power. How can you expect these people to stop the planting of opium and halt the drug trade? How is it that the Taliban when they were in power destroyed the opium production and a superpower not only cannot destroy the opium production but allows it to increase? And while all this goes on, those who support the war talk to you about women’s rights. We do not have human rights now in most provinces. It is as easy to kill a woman in my country as it is to kill a bird. In some big cities like Kabul, some women have access to jobs and education, but in most of the country the situation for women is hell. Rape, kidnapping and domestic violence are increasing. These fundamentalists during the so-called free elections made a misogynist law against Shia women in Afghanistan. This law has even been signed by Hamid Karzai. All these crimes are happening under the name of democracy.” Thousands of Afghan civilians have died from insurgent and foreign military violence. And American and NATO forces are responsible for almost half the civilian deaths in Afghanistan. Tens of thousands of Afghan civilians have also died from displacement, starvation, disease, exposure, lack of medical treatment, crime and lawlessness resulting from the war. Joya argues that Karzai and his rival Abdullah Abdullah, who has withdrawn from the Nov. 7 runoff election, will do nothing to halt the transformation of Afghanistan into a narco-state. She said that NATO, by choosing sides in a battle between two corrupt and brutal opponents, has lost all its legitimacy in the country. The recent resignation of a high-level U.S. diplomat in Afghanistan, Matthew Hoh, was in part tied to the drug problem. Hoh wrote in his resignation letter that Karzi’s government is filled with “glaring corruption and unabashed graft.” Karzi, he wrote, is a president “whose confidants and chief advisers comprise drug lords and war crimes villains who mock our own rule of law and counter-narcotics effort.” Joya said, “Where do you think the $36 billion of money poured into country by the international community have gone? This money went into the pockets of the drug lords and the warlords. There are 18 million people in Afghanistan who live on less than $2 a day while these warlords get rich. The Taliban and warlords together contribute to this fascism while the occupation forces are bombing and killing innocent civilians. When we do not have security how can we even talk about human rights or women’s rights?” “This election under the shade of Afghan war-lordism, drug-lordism, corruption and occupation forces has no legitimacy at all,” she said. “The result will be like the same donkey but with new saddles. It is not important who is voting. It is important who is counting. And this is our problem. Many of those who go with the Taliban do not support the Taliban, but they are fed up with these warlords and this injustice, and they go with the Taliban to take revenge. I do not agree with them, but I understand them. Most of my people are against the Taliban and the warlords, which is why millions did not take part in this tragic drama of an election.” “The U.S. wastes taxpayers’ money and the blood of their soldiers by supporting such a mafia corrupt system of Hamid Karzai,” said Joya, who changes houses in Kabul frequently because of the numerous death threats made against her. “Eight years is long enough to learn about Karzai and Abdullah. They chained my country to the center of drugs. If Obama was really honest he would support the democratic-minded people of my country. We have a lot [of those people]. But he does not support the democratic-minded people of my country. He is going to start war in Pakistan by attacking in the border area of Pakistan. More civilians have been killed in the Obama period than even during the criminal Bush.” “My people are sandwiched between two powerful enemies,” she lamented. “The occupation forces from the sky bomb and kill innocent civilians. On the ground, Taliban and these warlords deliver fascism. As NATO kills more civilians, the resistance to the foreign troops increases. If the U.S. government and NATO do not leave voluntarily, my people will give to them the same lesson they gave to Russia and to the English who three times tried to occupy Afghanistan. It is easier for us to fight against one enemy rather than two.”
Keywords
Afghanistan, Opium, Corruption, Democracy, Drugs, Election, Government, Hamid Karzai, Military, Money, Obama, Rape, Security, Terrorism, War, Women
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I suspect a well planned navy seal event in the very beginning would have taken care of Osama bin Laden. In and out with surgical precession. Not worry about the nation building, bullying, flag waving here come the mighty Americans approach and this entire discussion would be moot. We wouldn't be in Iraq either.
No disagreement here. Just a total SNAFU from the get go.
Roland & Loomis:
I am in agreement with you both
I guess we're all of the same accord on this one. I agree with Roland on the idea of Special Forces. Don't we pay the CIA to track down individuals?
Birch, The CIA is a ruthless cult of Christian extremism. They believe in one cause and that is their own. They deal drugs and arms and assassinate those leaders that don't go along with their plans and often have replaced foreign leaders with tyrannical despots (dictators). They have their own agenda and consider themselves above the law. If it wasn't for OBL they would be out of a job until they created another "enemy". The Crusades continue thanks to the Christians In Action. The sad part is they think they are following God's will.
Now before all you Christians jump down my throat I am only targeting one group, the Evangelicals. They are the greatest threat to world peace and our freedoms.
I have a problem with the term "Occupation" as it infers that our troops are aggressors. They are liberators.
As for Al Qaida and Taliban, we COULD have taken out OBL a long time ago but were pandering to the Pakistanis.
It would not surprise me if we had him at Tora Bora, sent in the Pakistan military, and OBL walked out in a Pakistani uniform surrounded by Pakistan military.
Yosemite - I too, used to think of us as "liberators". Perhaps at times, we have been such and will again, but the sad thing is, that we are a nation founded by our invasion and occupation of others. We are no better than most. We will never be truely free until we know and accept the truth. It is only then, that we can even start to be the great people we would like to see ourselves as...
Please read Howard Zinns "People's History of the United States". It is the prospective, with correct history in tact, of those we occupied and how this young country has come to be. It is a wonderful place to start and will be as a sandstorm that enriches your soul :-)
BB...not a pretty site...and some of you still think that we are actually looking for this almost 7 foot giant called Osama bin Laden....we can read license plates from satellites in space... but for some reason we can't find a giant in country of short people?
We only travel in other countries to assist in setting up Democratic Governments. I am ashamed many of you think otherwise!!!! As we set up these governments.. we are rewarded with OIL.... Sure a few poor souls kinda... sorta... get in the way and are accidentally killed... But, hey... most of us have it pretty good here at home...
lonewolf,
Actually, most of the here think they are getting screwed by the rich, the unsuccessfull by the successfull, and the homeless by those who own homes.
It has reached such a point, that over 50% of the population don't pay taxes at all. Welfare has become a lifestyle, a class, a force to be exploited for votes that cost a block of free cheese and smokes (and lotto tickets). It has reached such proportions that you can get all the way to the Oval Office with the promise to melt down our national security to beef up the Community Food Pantry, charge our own soldiers with war crimes, and to toss them all keys to sky blue caddilacs.
Attacking our military a tangile way to attack The Man who's been stepping on their dreams....no wonder they just can't get out of bed in the morning.....it's aggrivating to be poor, and entitled to more!
How dare you point out they should love and support their country....
Easy lonewolf.
Informing someone their head is on fire is bound to insult them one way or another.
Observer: I still see us as liberators. West Germans, while being very liberal, still see us as liberators. Even the Japanese who we crushed in WWII now see us as liberators.
The South Koreans see us as liberators. The British see us as liberators.
Those who oppose war, and oppose the military for imposing war upon people are naive at best.
They pretend that if we just didn't have a military, bad guys would stop being bad guys and the world would be a peaceful place.
There is no historical basis for this perspective. History has told us over and over that when you are weak, bad guys will come and take everything from you, rape and pillage.
We do have a challenge as "The big guy". We have to be the big GOOD guy. So far, the US has been pretty good. If we wanted, we could easily have gone in the Iraq and Saudi Arabia and Iran and just decimated the people and stole their oil. We have the ability to do that, but we do not. Instead, we lost many of our own lives trying to parse the evil ones from their midst and allowing them to establish a democracy.
The bad guys in today's world have established an approach of shooting from behind civilians so that we are forced to be extremely accurate or inflict casualties upon the civilian population. This makes it much harder for us, and we lose more of our troops as a result.
I just do not see us as the big bad oppressor. We make mistakes, but in general we are the liberators.
Well said YS.