miss al boogie
03-21-2003, 10:54 PM
and Bush will do the job. remember the liberation of Afghanistan?
read this article:
Afghanistan documentary exposes Bush's promises (http://www.thestar.ca/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&c=Article&cid=1035778495100&call_page=TS_Columnists&call_pageid=970599109774&call_pagepath=Columnists)
MICHELE LANDSBERG
Remember Afghanistan? U.S. President George Bush was going to go in there, bomb the Taliban out of existence, catch Osama bin Laden, install a brand-new democracy and make sure that "all the boys and girls could go to school."
Not only that: By routing the Taliban, Bush could enjoy the rare pleasure of draping himself in the silken mantle of a fighter for women's rights.
During his post-war January, 2002 state of the union speech, he introduced leading Afghan feminist and cabinet minister Dr. Sima Samar ("Today, women are free," he said) and basked in the applause of Congress.
If you'd like to check up on the progress of those grand promises, you can do so tonight when The Passionate Eye (CBC Newsworld at 10 p.m.) shows The Daughters of Afghanistan, a new documentary featuring journalist and activist Sally Armstrong, who has visited that country dozens of times since she began crusading for Afghan women's rights in 1996.
The state of Afghanistan is especially relevant right now — though little-reported — because the chaos and misery there give us a glimpse of just how difficult it is to reform a country by means of aerial bombardment.
Armstrong says that only about 30 per cent of Afghan girls attend school today, due to lack of resources and a Taliban-like fundamentalist grip on the country outside the capital. The warlords are still running the country, and their rule is cruel, violent and deeply misogynist.
Outside of Kabul, girls and women are still jailed for trying to escape forced marriages. They are forced to wear the burqa, attacked by fanatic vice squads, and even seized and subjected to demeaning gynecological "chastity" exams if caught anywhere near a man. Schools are firebombed; warlords' troops rape with impunity.
Dr. Samar, so admired by President Bush, was forced out of government by a vicious hoked-up fundamentalist plot a mere six months after becoming deputy prime minister. Reduced to a human rights commissioner, she is left without protection or funds by the indifferent U.S.
In Armstrong's documentary, the camera follows five women over the course of a year. Among the most heartbreaking: Kamala, reluctantly pregnant with her ninth child, who shrugs that she has no right to refuse sex with her husband.
"He hits, so what can I do?" she says. The husband grins and boasts that Islam gives him the "status" of having so many children.
Even more wrenching is the plight of Lima, a shy 13-year-old, orphaned by a Taliban attack, who spends her days cooking and cleaning for five younger siblings. Her only breaks are lonely visits to the cemetery where she watches over her mother's grave.
The United States has utterly failed to keep its promises to Afghanistan, and especially its promises to reinstate democracy (as though democracy could ever be imposed by outsiders, from above ...as it were). It's worth watching this compelling documentary just to taste the courage and resilience of the women, and the depth of their betrayal by American power.
The Washington Post says that American hamburger joints are springing up everywhere in Kabul. There might be post-war hamburgers in Baghdad, too, but there will be no fast-food version of democracy.
Speaking of Afghanistan, I was vastly amused recently to receive an e-mailed copy of a National Post editorial from Feb. 21.
The editorial scolded me and other "hard-left conspiracy theorists" for predicting that Unocal, an American energy company, would be in Afghanistan "two seconds after the end of bombing in Afghanistan." (Yes, I did write that.)
The Post was furious with me and hoped, it said, to make left-wing theories "look silly" for ascribing oily motivations to American wars in Central Asia and the Middle East. It wants to show how wrong we "hard lefties" were about Afghanistan in order to prove that we are equally mistaken about American designs on Iraqi oil.
The Post did admit that, back in the mid-'90s, Unocal had entertained Taliban leaders in Texas, hoping to build a natural gas pipeline across Afghanistan to carry Turkmenistan's huge gas reserves to the west. But "Unocal turned its back on Central Asia a long time ago," claimed the Post.
True: in 1998, a fierce public relations campaign led by Mavis Leno (wife of Jay Leno) and The Feminist Majority organization made Unocal back off dealings with the fundamentalist fanatics. Unocal explained on its Web site that it respected women's rights too much to do business with the Taliban.
Strangely, however, things are not quite so cut and dried as the Post imagines
The U.S. energy companies are not yet swarming over ruined Afghanistan because the country is still in a shambles, with no infrastructure, no peace and no safety. The instability and danger are so great that even the most intrepid aid agencies, like Médecins Sans Frontières, are talking of pulling back.
Nevertheless, last year a former U.S. State Department adviser, Martha Brill Olcott, was predicting that "we're 18 months to two years away" from a stabilized Afghanistan and "serious discussion of a U.S.-built pipeline."
Although Unocal strenuously denies any involvement in Afghanistan, its name keeps popping up in news accounts. President Hamid Karzai was formerly employed by a Unocal subsidiary, and last year Bush named a Unocal executive, Afghan-born Zalmay Khalilzad, as his special envoy to Afghanistan.
Really, we "hard lefties" aren't the only ones who think energy resources have a lot to do with U.S. war aims. A metaphorical two seconds after the Taliban were ousted, in December, 2001, the New York Times business section noted that the state department was investigating "post-Taliban energy projects in the region" and U.S. companies were said to be putting up $1 billion of the costs of a Caspian Pipeline Consortium.
Last May, the BBC reported that Afghanistan, Turkmenistan and Pakistan were signing a huge deal to build the long-planned pipeline. Mohammed Razim, Afghanistan's mines and industries minister, told the BBC that "Unocal will be the lead company" in funding the pipeline. Unocal denied it. At the same time, a Unocal spokesperson told the Los Angeles Times that the company had no plans there for the foreseeable future, but that "I don't think it would serve me to say `forever.'"
"Business has its secrets and mysteries," said the Afghan deputy minister of mines. "Maybe ... they don't want it to be disclosed in the media."
While I'm flattered to be the subject of such rapt scrutiny by the Post (a favour I rarely return), I think perhaps they ought not to be so hasty and emotional on this subject. Time will prove them wrong.
[ March 21, 2003, 10:56 PM: Message edited by: al boogie ]
read this article:
Afghanistan documentary exposes Bush's promises (http://www.thestar.ca/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&c=Article&cid=1035778495100&call_page=TS_Columnists&call_pageid=970599109774&call_pagepath=Columnists)
MICHELE LANDSBERG
Remember Afghanistan? U.S. President George Bush was going to go in there, bomb the Taliban out of existence, catch Osama bin Laden, install a brand-new democracy and make sure that "all the boys and girls could go to school."
Not only that: By routing the Taliban, Bush could enjoy the rare pleasure of draping himself in the silken mantle of a fighter for women's rights.
During his post-war January, 2002 state of the union speech, he introduced leading Afghan feminist and cabinet minister Dr. Sima Samar ("Today, women are free," he said) and basked in the applause of Congress.
If you'd like to check up on the progress of those grand promises, you can do so tonight when The Passionate Eye (CBC Newsworld at 10 p.m.) shows The Daughters of Afghanistan, a new documentary featuring journalist and activist Sally Armstrong, who has visited that country dozens of times since she began crusading for Afghan women's rights in 1996.
The state of Afghanistan is especially relevant right now — though little-reported — because the chaos and misery there give us a glimpse of just how difficult it is to reform a country by means of aerial bombardment.
Armstrong says that only about 30 per cent of Afghan girls attend school today, due to lack of resources and a Taliban-like fundamentalist grip on the country outside the capital. The warlords are still running the country, and their rule is cruel, violent and deeply misogynist.
Outside of Kabul, girls and women are still jailed for trying to escape forced marriages. They are forced to wear the burqa, attacked by fanatic vice squads, and even seized and subjected to demeaning gynecological "chastity" exams if caught anywhere near a man. Schools are firebombed; warlords' troops rape with impunity.
Dr. Samar, so admired by President Bush, was forced out of government by a vicious hoked-up fundamentalist plot a mere six months after becoming deputy prime minister. Reduced to a human rights commissioner, she is left without protection or funds by the indifferent U.S.
In Armstrong's documentary, the camera follows five women over the course of a year. Among the most heartbreaking: Kamala, reluctantly pregnant with her ninth child, who shrugs that she has no right to refuse sex with her husband.
"He hits, so what can I do?" she says. The husband grins and boasts that Islam gives him the "status" of having so many children.
Even more wrenching is the plight of Lima, a shy 13-year-old, orphaned by a Taliban attack, who spends her days cooking and cleaning for five younger siblings. Her only breaks are lonely visits to the cemetery where she watches over her mother's grave.
The United States has utterly failed to keep its promises to Afghanistan, and especially its promises to reinstate democracy (as though democracy could ever be imposed by outsiders, from above ...as it were). It's worth watching this compelling documentary just to taste the courage and resilience of the women, and the depth of their betrayal by American power.
The Washington Post says that American hamburger joints are springing up everywhere in Kabul. There might be post-war hamburgers in Baghdad, too, but there will be no fast-food version of democracy.
Speaking of Afghanistan, I was vastly amused recently to receive an e-mailed copy of a National Post editorial from Feb. 21.
The editorial scolded me and other "hard-left conspiracy theorists" for predicting that Unocal, an American energy company, would be in Afghanistan "two seconds after the end of bombing in Afghanistan." (Yes, I did write that.)
The Post was furious with me and hoped, it said, to make left-wing theories "look silly" for ascribing oily motivations to American wars in Central Asia and the Middle East. It wants to show how wrong we "hard lefties" were about Afghanistan in order to prove that we are equally mistaken about American designs on Iraqi oil.
The Post did admit that, back in the mid-'90s, Unocal had entertained Taliban leaders in Texas, hoping to build a natural gas pipeline across Afghanistan to carry Turkmenistan's huge gas reserves to the west. But "Unocal turned its back on Central Asia a long time ago," claimed the Post.
True: in 1998, a fierce public relations campaign led by Mavis Leno (wife of Jay Leno) and The Feminist Majority organization made Unocal back off dealings with the fundamentalist fanatics. Unocal explained on its Web site that it respected women's rights too much to do business with the Taliban.
Strangely, however, things are not quite so cut and dried as the Post imagines
The U.S. energy companies are not yet swarming over ruined Afghanistan because the country is still in a shambles, with no infrastructure, no peace and no safety. The instability and danger are so great that even the most intrepid aid agencies, like Médecins Sans Frontières, are talking of pulling back.
Nevertheless, last year a former U.S. State Department adviser, Martha Brill Olcott, was predicting that "we're 18 months to two years away" from a stabilized Afghanistan and "serious discussion of a U.S.-built pipeline."
Although Unocal strenuously denies any involvement in Afghanistan, its name keeps popping up in news accounts. President Hamid Karzai was formerly employed by a Unocal subsidiary, and last year Bush named a Unocal executive, Afghan-born Zalmay Khalilzad, as his special envoy to Afghanistan.
Really, we "hard lefties" aren't the only ones who think energy resources have a lot to do with U.S. war aims. A metaphorical two seconds after the Taliban were ousted, in December, 2001, the New York Times business section noted that the state department was investigating "post-Taliban energy projects in the region" and U.S. companies were said to be putting up $1 billion of the costs of a Caspian Pipeline Consortium.
Last May, the BBC reported that Afghanistan, Turkmenistan and Pakistan were signing a huge deal to build the long-planned pipeline. Mohammed Razim, Afghanistan's mines and industries minister, told the BBC that "Unocal will be the lead company" in funding the pipeline. Unocal denied it. At the same time, a Unocal spokesperson told the Los Angeles Times that the company had no plans there for the foreseeable future, but that "I don't think it would serve me to say `forever.'"
"Business has its secrets and mysteries," said the Afghan deputy minister of mines. "Maybe ... they don't want it to be disclosed in the media."
While I'm flattered to be the subject of such rapt scrutiny by the Post (a favour I rarely return), I think perhaps they ought not to be so hasty and emotional on this subject. Time will prove them wrong.
[ March 21, 2003, 10:56 PM: Message edited by: al boogie ]