On Oct 28th it was reported that The Taliban struck in Kabul, friends that we know living there were amazed what a well operated action it was! The attackers, clad in suicide vests and armed with grenades and machine guns struck at dawn on the 28th. six UN staff died in the two hour fire fight that followed.
Orla Guerin was in South Wazaristan on news at 10 tonight and she was able to see the mountains where Hackney Mullah and the village of Kot Kai where he oversees the Taliban in the country. What can we possible do with such an organisation? What they are doing is playing through fear and suggesting that they do not allow the education of women.
Newspapers are running the story that Karzai's brother Ahmed Wali Karzai was on the CIA payroll for years a suspected player in the country's opium trade and was paid over 8 years for services including helping to recruit an Afghan paramilitary force as was reported in a US paper.
There was a warning that anyone working on the Nov 7th run off election was at risk.
Thursday, 29 October 2009
Friday, 23 October 2009
Courage in Afghanistan
A man that was injured 11 weeks ago was so inspirational and with such bad injuries that even the Duchess of Cornwall who visited Headley Court yesterday Oct 22nd, was overwhelmed. She saw Rifleman Craig Wood who was just 18 and had been blown up by the Taliban on his first patrol. Losing three limbs and having 27 pints of blood he was given only a 50% chance of survival but he is facing this horrendous injury with an awe inspiring determination. He is able to say to his girlfriend that sometimes he wakes up and starts crying. "I have to make the best of it! I have lost a number of good colleagues, I know how lucky I am, in a way"
That "in a way" resounds through that article. In this mad war, who is going to remember Craig Wood, but his family and friends and the celebreties that saw him.
Now Karsai has accepted the two man presidential battle so he will take on Abdullah Abdullah after the UN found that hundreds and thousands of votes were fake. The contest will be on Novenber 7th. One hopes that that will go off with not too much bloodshed. The same paper reveals that the US are undermining Pakistan's offensive against the Taliban abandoning border posts and allowing them through to South Waziristan.
These Afghan men and women are fighting for their existence. There are some who would like a "Loya Jurga" in Afghanistan or to bring Journalists over to the UK. It would be great to keep these doors of communication open, so that the population would not feel so marginilised.
That "in a way" resounds through that article. In this mad war, who is going to remember Craig Wood, but his family and friends and the celebreties that saw him.
Now Karsai has accepted the two man presidential battle so he will take on Abdullah Abdullah after the UN found that hundreds and thousands of votes were fake. The contest will be on Novenber 7th. One hopes that that will go off with not too much bloodshed. The same paper reveals that the US are undermining Pakistan's offensive against the Taliban abandoning border posts and allowing them through to South Waziristan.
These Afghan men and women are fighting for their existence. There are some who would like a "Loya Jurga" in Afghanistan or to bring Journalists over to the UK. It would be great to keep these doors of communication open, so that the population would not feel so marginilised.
Sunday, 4 October 2009
Where do we go from here?
This is a really muddling situation, which Obama is trying to see his way through, as Andrew Sullivan states in his article this Sunday October 4th will he send the extra troops? which some members of the senate are all for, but the American public is not certain of and there is a lot riding on this decision and a lot of lives that could be lost.
Now, with him just being awarded a Nobel peace prize very unexpectedly "what has he done" I hear you ask? It's just two months since he took over. Well I am sure that his stance about the nuclear issue has helped - and he is all for more countries to disarm, and he wants to distance himself from the Bush premiership. He calls for more countries to unite and made the pivotal speech to the Muslims in Cairo saying that the US were holding out a hand of friendship.
Now Leitifa (which is a pseudonym) has written "My Forbidden Face" about her growing up in Kabul unable to go to Kabul university as the Taliban did not agree with women being educated and to become a journalist and was able to publish her book. She comes from a well educated family with parents both working, her mother a doctor and her father running an export business.
I don't think we can know what she must have gone through to write this book, we from a "democratic" country without the fear of being arrested by the Taliban for being a woman walking about outside without being in the presence of a man either a husband or a relative.
Now, with him just being awarded a Nobel peace prize very unexpectedly "what has he done" I hear you ask? It's just two months since he took over. Well I am sure that his stance about the nuclear issue has helped - and he is all for more countries to disarm, and he wants to distance himself from the Bush premiership. He calls for more countries to unite and made the pivotal speech to the Muslims in Cairo saying that the US were holding out a hand of friendship.
Now Leitifa (which is a pseudonym) has written "My Forbidden Face" about her growing up in Kabul unable to go to Kabul university as the Taliban did not agree with women being educated and to become a journalist and was able to publish her book. She comes from a well educated family with parents both working, her mother a doctor and her father running an export business.
I don't think we can know what she must have gone through to write this book, we from a "democratic" country without the fear of being arrested by the Taliban for being a woman walking about outside without being in the presence of a man either a husband or a relative.
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