Brave New Films has partnered with RAWA, to help Afghans displaced by US war, focusing on what is really happening in Afghanistan as a result of US policy. The partnership is to provide direct aid to displaced people living in desperate conditions in suburbs of Kabul. The plight of these people has been covered in a documentary viewable in segments at the Rethink Afghanistan.

There are five segments up at the site currently. Most are quite disturbing. The site itself is worth tooling around. I’ve been following it for some time, as I’ve followed RAWA. The site boasts a blog, and a separate section for Veterans for Rethinking Afghanistan.

Unlike Iran Afghanistan is technologically isolated. The people, their way of life, are unfamiliar to most of us. Iran, though isolated via sanctions, is a country whose people we relate to, and proudly twitter about, because they look more like us, are educated like us, have access – even if limited – to advanced technology, and we fear their country. We find it harder to relate to the Afghan people. Consequently we are less bothered by the fact that the women of Afghanistan suffer some of the most horrific circumstances we could ever imagine. We don’t twitter about them, or turn our faces green over them.

There is no logic to how we choose our causes. At times it seems merely a matter of convenience, though we tend to act much quicker, and with more careful consideration, when we can see ourselves in others. The more people seem like us, the more likely we will be bothered by their distress and act, if only symbolically, on it.

We choose our causes based on sameness. Women are going to have to help women. First we have to listen to the women we are hoping to help. The 5th segment of the documentary will help with that. Bombs will kill women in Afghanistan.

We should be aware of what our policy is doing to women around the world, even if it is not as easy for them to communicate this to us and our nightly news is not reporting it.

The site also has a direct link to donate to RAWA. The donations will purchase a variety of things, from ghee and rice, to blankets and tent carpets.

A comments off FYI posting.

peace

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If at the end of this seemingly infinite election you are victorious and decide to go finish the job we left undone in Afghanistan — as you alluded to recently in your meeting with President Hamid Karzai, pledging “steadfast aid” and all
(source) ( Obama meets Afghan president Karzai) — consider doing it right differently than Bushy did, finish what you start, and don’t use it as some kind of photo op publicity stunt.

Watch MOTHERLAND AFGHANISTAN in which Afghan American filmmaker Sedika Mojadidi follows her father (Dr. Qudrat Mojadidi) on his tragic trip to Afghanistan, a trip he was invited on by the U.S. government to help rehabilitate the largest women’s hospital in the country, Rabia Balkhi, a hospital which at the time was put under U.S. Sponsorship with a newly re-named Laura Bush maternity ward.

With maternal health and both infant and maternal mortality so high in Afghanistan the goal was to train and treat and to help promote proper and efficient care for these women.

His arrival to this “Laura Bush Maternity Ward” reveals horrific conditions, sewage back-up and no supplies, which despite continuing pleas from Dr Quadrat never arrive. Though he does get letters from his superiors congratulating him on what a good job is doing…..like WTF.

He eventually left in frustration but went back later with privately funded organization, to a different hospital and though still a very tough road the place was at clean and had supplies. Something the U.S. promised but for some reason couldn’t manage to do in their great publicity op Laura Bush Maternity Ward.

Don’t be afraid to ask the people of the countries you are trying to help what they need, believe it or not they usually know better than we what they need and how things work in their countries. Do not name a ward of a hospital after your wife if you intend to leave floating in shit. Better yet, if you do carry something like this out properly name the wards after Afghani’s, after all they have suffered more, it is their country, and in the end it will be them who makes it work no matter how much help we give them.

Thank You.

The Film: Motherland Afghanistan

The film, criticized over a year ago by the NYT when is first came on Independent Lens as a film which would not change your view on foreign policy. Wrongly criticized in in my opinion. The first thing it made me see as faulty was the policy which promotes this kind of worthless effort by the bureaucracy of The Department of Health Human Services. So this film is worth more than a look see, and is still playing on Independent Lens.

Peace and Happy Birthday Miss Savage. Please go prevent her from shagging herself to oblivion.

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