[Peace-discuss] Malalai Joya, Noam Chomsky Denounce US Occupation of Afghanistan

[C. G. Estabrook]

Malalai Joya, Noam Chomsky Denounce US Occupation of Afghanistan
Joya said that the Administration did not want to give her a visa because her 
message exposes the lies that justify the U.S. war in Afghanistan

March 26 - In two jam-packed appearances this weekend, Afghan feminist leader 
Malalai Joya reached at least 1500 people with her denunciations of the U.S. 
occupation of Afghanistan. She spoke with Professor Noam Chomsky to 1200 people 
at Harvard's Memorial Church Friday night and to 300 in Jamaica Plain this 
afternoon. The Harvard event was the largest single Boston area event focused on 
opposing the Afghanistan war since the war's start almost ten years ago.

The U.S. State Department initially denied Joya a visa, even though her 
publisher, Simon & Schuster, and antiwar groups had lined up a three week 
speaking tour with dozens of speaking engagements coast to coast. After letters 
from at least a dozen Members of Congress, the American Civil Liberties Union, 
American Association of University Professors, and PEN, as well as 3000 online 
petition signatures and a phone-in day to the State Department last Wednesday, 
the U.S. Embassy relented and granted Joya a visa.

Joya said that the Administration did not want to give her a visa because her 
message exposes the lies that justify the U.S. war in Afghanistan. She told her 
audiences that after 10 years of U.S. occupation and "development aid", 
Afghanistan ranks next to last among all countries on the UN Human Development 
Index, and that the conditions of Afghan women have not improved.

Warlords and drug lords dominate Parliament and the Karzai government, Joya 
said, while U.S. troops kill civilians and rain destruction from the air. Afghan 
women and democratic people are caught between three enemies: the misogynist 
Taliban, the fundamentalist and misogynist warlords and Karzai regime, and the 
U.S. occupation forces. If the U.S. occcupation forces leave her country, Joya 
said that it will be easier, because Afghans will only have two enemies to 
fight, instead of three.

Joya said that the U.S. in Afghanistan for its own regional strategic interests, 
and not to help the Afghan people. She said that U.S. forces do not plan to 
leave by 2014, as President Obama has promised, but plan to stay a long time.

Prof. Chomsky agreed that the U.S. military is not in Afghanistan or other 
countries for humanitarian reasons or to promote security or democracy, but to 
advance the interests of a corporate elite that controls U.S. policy. He pointed 
to the dangerous destabilization of Pakistan that has been driven by U.S. aid to 
the military there over many decades, by U.S. support of fundamentalist Islam 
which began under Reagan and continues via Pakistan to this day, and by the U.S. 
drone attacks in Pakistan which are causing many civilian casualties, and 
suggested that no one could possibly think these policies were intended to 
advance security.
Malalai Joya and Noam Chomsky in the Harvard University
About 1200 people attended the event.

Joya praised Chomsky's work in exposing U.S. imperialism, expressed her pleasure 
in sharing a podium with him, and said that although Presidents Bush and Obama 
have brought only grief to Afghanistan, Prof. Chomsky is an example of the 
freedom- and democracy-loving American people.

The Harvard event was sponsored by Haymarket Books, several Harvard student 
groups, the UJP Afghanistan-Pakistan Task Force, and Massachusetts Peace Action; 
at least 50% of the audience appeared to be students. The Jamaica Plain event 
was sponsored by Jamaica Plain Forum, Women's International League for Peace and 
Freedom, and several women's organizations; a majority of its audience were women.

At both events the audiences gave multiple standing ovations to the speakers, 
interrupted the talks with applause, bought large numbers of Malalai Joya's 
books, and signed petitions calling on President Obama to end the Afghanistan war.

The Boston Globe's report on the Jamaica Plain event is at http://bo.st/ffWdyy.

Read more: 
http://www.rawa.org/temp/runews/2011/03/27/malalai-joya-noam-chomsky-denounce-us-occupation-of-afghanistan.html#ixzz1HvUxhSJW