[Peace-discuss] We're told we're killing & dying for these people

Wed Oct 21 12:13:00 CDT 2009

AFGHAN FEMINIST MALALAI JOYA U.S. SPEAKING TOUR 10/23-11/7

First, a reminder that it’s not too late to sign on to the CPD statement “We 
Call for the United States to End Its Wars in Afghanistan and Pakistan!” You can 
add your name and donate to help publicize the statement at 
http://www.cpdweb.org/stmts/1014/stmt.shtml   And be sure to check out our 
two-page ad in the issue of The Nation coming out at the end of this week.

We are writing now to invite you to hear Afghan feminist Malalai Joya, who will 
be on a speaking tour across the United States from October 23 through November 
7. She will speak in

     * New York City (5 events)
     * Providence, RI
     * Cambridge, MA
     * Washington, DC (2 events)
     * California--Beverly Hills, Irvine, Pasadena, Los Angeles, San Jose and 
Berkeley (2 events)
     * Washington state – Seattle and Bellingham

For tour details, see

http://www.afghanwomensmission.org/cgi-bin/cal/calendar.pl?month=11&calendar=&month=10

In New York City, The Nation Institute, Iraq Veterans Against the War, Code 
Pink, The Campaign for Peace and Democracy, Mark Kurlansky, author of 
Non-Violence: The History of a Dangerous Idea, and veteran war correspondent 
Chris Hedges, author of War is a Force That Gives Us Meaning, invite you to an 
evening of mobilization against the war in Afghanistan on Wednesday, October 28.

The meeting will be held at the Quaker Meeting House in New York City at 15 
Rutherford Place at 7 PM.  (between 15th and 16th Streets, and between 2nd and 
3rd Avenues) in Manhattan.

Malalai Joya, the outspoken female politician and member of the Afghan 
parliament, will discuss the reality of the war and its consequences for the 
Afghan people. In addition, as well as American combat veterans of the war will 
talk about the effects on U.S. troops.

At a time when military commanders concede that the U.S. is rapidly losing 
ground to the Taliban insurgents, it is vital that we recognize the consequences 
of the war and the dangerous direction it could take if we permit further 
military escalation.

The event is free and open to the public. Copies of A Woman Among Warlords will 
be on sale at this and other tour events.

In peace and solidarity,

Joanne                     Tom

Joanne Landy         Thomas Harrison

Co-Directors, Campaign for Peace and Democracy

www.cpdweb.org      cpd at igc.org

	ABOUT MALALAI JOYA, AUTHOR OF A WOMAN AMONG WARLORDS:
	THE EXTRAORDINARY STORY OF AN AFGHAN WOMAN WHO DARED TO SPEAK OUT

Malalai Joya, the young woman who the BBC has hailed as the “bravest in 
Afghanistan” has published her memoirs, A Woman Among Warlords: The 
Extraordinary Story of an Afghan Woman Who Dared to Speak Out, co-written with 
Canadian activist and writer Derrick O’Keefe. You can purchase the book at your 
local independent bookstore, or online now at amazon.com

Joya, now 31, was the youngest ever woman elected to the Afghan Parliament in 
2005 and is an outspoken critic of the Karzai government and NATO occupation.

With U.S. President Obama considering escalating the war in Afghanistan with 40, 
000 or more additional troops -- and the Canadian government signaling that 
Canada’s forces will in fact not be coming home at the end of 2010, Joya’s 
speaking tour and book release are timely.

“Afghan women like me, voting and running for office, have been held up as proof 
that the United States has brought democracy and women’ rights to Afghanistan,” 
Joya writes. “But it is all a lie.” Her book tells the story of her life in the 
context of three decades of war. Joya details her reasons for opposing NATO's 
war and suggests concrete steps for building an independent and genuinely 
democratic Afghanistan.

Malalai Joya, often compared to Burma’s Aung San Suu Kyi, has emerged as a 
symbol of Afghans’ desire for freedom from corruption, warlordism and foreign 
occupation. Her father, who lost a leg fighting the Soviet occupation of 
Afghanistan, named her after a 19th century hero in the fight against the 
British Empire, Malalai of Maiwand.

Today, Joya brings to a North American audience the lessons of Afghanistan’s 
long history of occupation and resistance. And she hopes her book will correct 
the tremendous amount of misinformation being spread about Afghanistan.

“Afghans are sometimes represented in the media as a backward people, nothing 
more than terrorists, criminals and henchmen. This false image is extremely 
dangerous for the future of both my country and the West," says Joya. "The truth 
is that Afghans are brave and freedom loving people with a rich culture and a 
proud history. We are capable of defending our independence, governing ourselves 
and determining our own future.”

Campaign for Peace and Democracy
2790 Broadway, #12
New York, New York 10025

C. G. Estabrook wrote:
> "Washington’s warmongers have been getting away with mass murder in 
> Afghanistan for far too long. Obama is now at the helm of this disastrous
> imperial adventure. 'Troops out now' is the only viable exit strategy, yet it
> can also easily fit onto a bumper sticker. Those who argue for prolonging the
> U.S. occupation until the U.S. transforms its mission into a benevolent one
> are likely to be kept waiting forever."
> 
> From <http://www.counterpunch.org/>:
> 
> Et Tu, CodePink? By SHARON SMITH
> 
> ...Through blackmail, bribery and brute military force, the U.S. has 
> determined the political landscape of post-Taliban Afghanistan.
> 
> U.S. conquerors installed Karzai as Afghanistan’s transitional head of state
> in December 2001. But Karzai was never meant to build a genuine democracy in
> Afghanistan. Nor was he expected to champion the rights of women. On the
> contrary, he was chosen not for his ethical credentials but rather for his
> close ties to the band of warlords with which the U.S. partnered to quickly
> overthrow the Taliban in November 2001.
> 
> Renamed the “Northern Alliance” for the purpose of casting these warlords as
> freedom fighters, in reality they were veterans of the National Islamic
> United Front for the Salvation of Afghanistan, an unstable coalition that
> ruled Afghanistan between 1992 and 1996, when the Taliban overthrew it.
> 
> Together, they constituted seven separate Mujahideen political parties, each
> representing the fiefdom of a corrupt warlord. Their president, Burhanuddin
> Rabbani, suspended the constitution and issued a series of religious edicts
> banishing women from broadcasting and government jobs, and requiring women to
> wear veils. More severe repression soon followed.
> 
> Karzai served as Deputy Foreign Minister in Rabbani’s government, while the
> feuding Mujahideen parties unleashed a rein of terror against Afghanistan’s
> already war-torn population. Women were routinely abducted, beaten and raped,
> or sold into prostitution. According to human rights expert Patricia Gossman,
> “Between 1992 and 1995, fighting among the factions of the alliance reduced a
> third of Kabul to rubble and killed more than 50,000 civilians. The top
> commanders ordered massacres of rival ethnic groups, and their troops engaged
> in mass rape.”
> 
> In June 2002, in what the U.S. media depicted as a “flowering of democracy,”
> a Loya Jirga, or tribal council, elected Karzai as Afghanistan’s interim
> president. But most of the decisions were made behind the scenes, where
> then-U.S. envoy Khalilzad -- a former Unocal oil executive -- worked hand in
> glove with Karzai and the Northern Alliance to manipulate the votes. During
> the Loya Jurga, Karzai announced his own election as president before the
> vote had actually taken place, to the dismay of many delegates.
> 
> In the run up to the 2002 Loya Jirga, eight delegates were murdered amid a
> general rise in political violence and intimidation by warlords guarding
> their own fiefdoms. Meanwhile, Karzai used a rumored plot to overthrow his
> government as an excuse to round up 700 of his political opponents in the
> weeks before the voting.
> 
> Karzai’s brother, Ahmed Wali Karzai, has long been flagged as a drug 
> trafficker in Southern Afghanistan, but the allegations have never been 
> investigated. He continues to head the Kandahar Provincial Council, the 
> governing body for the region. He also has played a role in passing 
> information to international intelligence agencies. According to Rajiv 
> Chandrasekaran, writing in the Washington Post, while aware of information
> implicating Karzai in the drug trade, "U.S. and Canadian diplomats have not
> pressed the matter, in part because Ahmed Wali Karzai has given valuable
> intelligence to the U.S. military, and he also routinely provides assistance
> to Canadian forces, according to several officials familiar with the issue."
> 
> Under President Karzai’s watch, Afghanistan has returned to providing roughly
> 95 percent of the world’s heroin supplies while the U.S. military looks the
> other way. As Jeff Stein recently reported from the Huffington Post,
> Republican Rep. Mike Rogers of Michigan, explained bluntly why Karzai’s
> brother has never been charged: "We certainly need the president to be with
> us. That would be hard if we're hauling off his brother to a detention
> center."
> 
> *** _______________________________________________ Peace-discuss mailing
> list Peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net 
> http://lists.chambana.net/cgi-bin/listinfo/peace-discuss