Disappeared News

by Larry Geller

It would surely burn them up, these men fighting in Afghanistan, to even suggest that they listen to the words of a woman about anything. It would probably burn them up, those warlords in Afghanistan, to suggest that they take her advice.

It would probably burn them up, those warlords in Washington, to suggest that they listen to this Afghan woman about how they should negotiate and end their interminable, destructive war there. It would probably even burn up Barack Obama, who plans to send more troops to their deaths in a land we are not at war with.

Rangina Hamidi is someone everyone might listen to.

From the Democracy Now webpage: Rangina Hamidi is an Afghan activist and founder of kandahartreasure.com, the first women-run business in her hometown of Kandahar.

This snip is from the end of the interview. I usually don’t quote something this long, but here it is, because I think it’s very worth reading. Click to the Democracy Now article to hear Rangina in her own voice.

AMY GOODMAN: Finally, Rangina, I wanted to get your opinion of this latest news. The New York Times published an interview that they did with President Obama on Air Force One. They said President Obama declared in the interview that the United States is not winning the war in Afghanistan and opened the door to a reconciliation process in which the American military would reach out to moderate elements of the Taliban, much as it did with Sunni militias in Iraq. Your response, Rangina?

RANGINA HAMIDI: I think that’s a very interesting point. And actually, I would like to take some time to answer this. In 2001, when the Bonn Agreement was being signed on Afghanistan, as outside—as Afghans sitting obviously not at the table and not at the conference, but we know the representatives of many of the political parties or groups of the past thirty-some years of the war in Afghanistan all represented at that agreement, I—you know, having absolutely no experience in Afghanistan, because I was in America still, I questioned my father. I said, “Isn’t it interesting that almost every group that has been involved in the destruction of Afghanistan since the past thirty years is represented in the Bonn conference except for the Taliban?” And seven years later, or eight years later, that question that I asked is now actually being talked about by the President of America.

And it’s interesting, because if you ask, again, ordinary Afghans—there’s a difference between ordinary Afghans and then Afghans who have been involved very brutally in the destruction of Afghanistan—many Afghans will say that they did not want any of the warlords, the drug lords, the people who destroyed Afghanistan since the late ’70s, to be involved in the government, but yet the reality and the fact of the matter is—and this is what the world needs to know—that every single thug responsible for the destruction is now in some power position within the government of my country. They’re either ministers or advisers or in the senate or in the parliament or, on a local level, governors of provinces. So it was only a question of justice and fairness to say, well, if all these guys are in this government, why are we excluding the Taliban from it initially? Ideal case scenario, of course, would be to not have any of them involved, from day one. But if you are playing fair and just, then you involve the Taliban, too.

Now, coming back to the question of moderate Taliban, to be honest, I, as an Afghan, to this day, I still question, first of all, who is a Talib? And I think this is what Americans and the American government also lacks an understanding of. When we talk about the Taliban, who are we really talking about? Because the Taliban movement itself is so divided among itself that there is the Pakistani version, there is the Afghans, there is the Chechens or the Arabs or the, you know, people who come from other parts, or the Somalians, for example, who come from other parts of the world to be involved in this movement. Who are we talking about when we talk about the Taliban? And then, when we say “moderate Taliban,” I almost laugh at that the statement, because if it’s a moderate Talib who’s not actively fighting a war, meaning not blowing himself up or not encouraging others to blow themselves up, then why do we necessarily need to waste resources and time in talking to them? Because they’re not the problem; the problem is the extremists. Why aren’t we trying harder to reach out to the most extreme? Because that’s really the problem, the problem makers.

And, you know, a fact that America needs to accept is, when we address the issue of Taliban, be it extreme or moderate, the question of Pakistan is definitely a must. You cannot deny the fact that Pakistan is not involved. Everybody knows this. The entire world knows this. And so, unless there is a clear focus or a clear item on the agenda about the issue of Taliban that Pakistan needs to be actively involved and that the extremists need to be somehow addressed, I fear that we might be losing time and resources and energy again by just merely focusing on the moderate.

Again, I’m not suggesting that it’s not a good idea to begin with the moderates, a conversation with the moderates, but that should not be our ultimate goal and the end of the goal. We need to reach out to the extremists, and we also need to reach out—I mean, and not reach out, but reach out to the people, to the masses, and really just state our goal in Afghanistan. You know, I would like America to clearly state what it wants to achieve in Afghanistan, for how long it wants to be here. You know, when you compare it to Iraq, there is now a clear goal of when America wants to leave, and they’re already pulling out troops, and, you know, the Iraqis now have a feeling that America will eventually leave. For Afghanistan, we still have no idea. Is this going to be an indefinite war? Is this going to be an indefinite presence in Afghanistan? And if it is, we would like to know. I think Afghans have the right to information, and that information is our right to know. And I think America owes that responsibility to tell us what they’re doing here, how long they’re going to be here, and what its strategy is in addressing the situation.

Permalink posted by Larry @ 3/10/2009 02:17:00 PM