May Day.

Big, fluffy snow is falling here. Very beautiful against the colors that have come out. Pink flowered trees, white flowered trees and all colors of flowers are at their peak right now. The snow adds magic to it all.



In Baghdad, it's about 93 degrees right now. I wonder what it's like to be an American soldier or an Iraqi civilian there today. Five years ago today, it was announced that our mission was accomplished. It's hard to wash out the bad taste that scene left in my mouth.



The temps in Kabul will reach 82 degrees today. Watching the snow outside my window, I wonder what's going on in that country so far away. We hear so little.

I Google "Afghanistan War" and find this:

At a NATO summit in early April, President Bush told the allies the United States would send many more troops to Afghanistan in 2009. He mentioned no numbers, but U.S. commanders say they need at least two more brigades, or 7,500 troops.

Oh.

Juan Torres, whom I first met at Camp Casey in 2005, has been working on a movie about his son who died rather mysteriously at Bagram AFB in Afghanistan. Read more here. Today I found out that a website has been created for the movie, which is titled Drugs and Death at Bagram. If you visit the site, scroll down to read the story behind the movie.

Juan Torres is one of the sweetest, most humble men that I met at Camp Casey (I've seen him there twice and then in D.C. - he is on a mission). I can only imagine the pain that was caused first by the death of his son and then as Juan dug deep into the cause of his son's death.

Labels: Afghanistan, drugs and death at bagram, Iraq War, Juan Torres, photography

At last Friday's trial, Mr. City Attorney, while questioning potential jurors, proposed a fictional scenario: "Say there is a man on trial for stealing peanut butter, jelly, and some bread from the grocery store. There are several witnesses who observed it, and there is a videotape of him picking up these things and hiding them in his clothes. Who would say this man guilty of stealing?

All twelve potential jurors raised their hands.

Mr. C. A. then added, "What if the circumstances are the same, but you found out that the man is a father and his kids have no food, so he is stealing in order to feed them? Who would still say that he is guilty?

All twelve potential jurors raised their hands.

Mr. C. A. obviously wanted the jurors to admit that a crime is a crime no matter the circumstances behind it. Heartstrings don't count when your dealing with the law.

That is just fine and dandy, but you know what? I think that a society is very sick if we just make things black and white. If we would put that man in jail, then his kids would be in even worse condition. Why do we have to look at people as parts instead of a whole? It seems to me that a more human way of responding would be to say that yes, it is wrong to steal, but it is also wrong to have a culture where someone has to steal in order to feed their family. We could help the family get their needs met and MAYBE the man won't have to steal. If he still finds himself helping himself to the property of others, that is a different problem.

Don't tell me that you wouldn't steal food to feed your family if it came down to that.

In the book, Three Cups of Tea, Greg Mortenson (Central Asian Institute), an incredible man who, I think, qualifies as a Nobel Peace Prize winner for his work in building schools in the back countries of Pakistan and Afghanistan says, " I've learned that terror doesn't happen because some group of people somewhere like Pakistan or Afghanistan simply decide to hate us. It happens because children aren't being offered a bright enough future that they have a reason to choose life over death.

"... He spoke about Pakistan's impoverished public schools. He spoke about the Wahhabi madrassas sprouting like cancerous cells and billions of dollars Saudi sheikhs [You know, people from the country that we are supplying weapons] carried into the region in suitcases to fuel the factories of Jihad.

"Then Mortenson talked of the tribal traditions that attended conflict in the region - the way warring parties held a jirga [meeting] before doing battle, to discuss how many losses they were willing to accept, since victors were expected to care for the widows and orphans of the rivals they have vanquished.

"'People in that part of the world are used to death and violence,' Mortenson said. 'And if you tell them, 'We're sorry your father died, but he died a martyr so Afghanistan could be free,' and if you offer them compensation and honor their sacrifice, I think people will support us, even now. But the worst thing that you can do is what we're doing - ignoring the victims. To call them 'collateral damage' and not even try to count the numbers of the dead. Because to ignore them is to deny they ever existed, and there is no greater insult in the Islamic world. For that, we will never be forgiven.'"

This was spoken by a man who has spent years in Pakistan and Afghanistan, endearing himself to almost everyone he met there because he listened and cared. Those who are perpetrating this war have no relationship with the people of the area. They've never sat and had tea with a man and his family and learned about their village.

Where is our soul when we can allow people in our own country to go hungry and homeless? Where is our soul when we are not willing to learn about the people in the countries that we bomb, not caring for the innocent civilians that we kill or leave orphaned? Why are we not wise enough to at least first TRY to take care of our problems by going for the root cause instead of just imprisoning them or bombing them away?

From reading this book, I actually believe that it would be cheaper to help create a means of education and support for people so that they don't need to kill or steal for their needs than it is for us to pay for this trillion-dollar war. Definitely cheaper in the cost of goodwill, our safety here, and the price of combined lives and devastation.

Oh yeah, if we took that route, certain friends of people in high places would not have the wealth that they have now...

Labels: Afghanistan, Central Asian Institute, Three Cups of Tea, War

When the towers were hit on September 11, 2001, we seemed to think that Al Qaeda was responsible and the Taliban were hiding Al Qaeda members (including the mastermind - Osama) in Afghanistan. So in October of 2001, we went in to Afghanistan to "capture Osama bin Laden, destroy Al-Qaeda, and remove the Taliban regime".

But somehow since then, we got all involved with Iraq, and that has become the news of the day - and don't make me list all of the reasons that have been created to justify that war. Meanwhile, our war in Afghanistan - the one that was originally created to retaliate against the "evildoers" that attacked America - still limps along. I can't find out how many U.S. troops are in Afghanistan at the moment, but as of 2004, there were 18,000. Compare that to the 145,000 in Iraq with another 35,000 being deployed soon.

Nearly 100 soldiers are killed each year in our war in Afghanistan, interestingly called Operation Enduring Freedom. And civilian deaths over there are understandably causing anger.

The peace community talks about getting out of Iraq now. We talk about the civilian deaths and the deaths of our soldiers, but what about "Out of Afghanistan Now"? Is this war more okay? Are we doing a "good job" over there? Do we have certain goals to achieve and when we achieve them, we'll leave those people alone? I certainly have no idea.

And it seems that no one is talking about it.

Labels: Afghanistan