The US has Returned Fundamentalism to Afghanistan

[babylonsister]

http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/04/12/468/

The US has Returned Fundamentalism to Afghanistan
by Malalai Joya

The following is a transcript of the speech given by Malalai Joya, member of the Afghan Parliament, given at the University of Los Angeles on Tuesday April, 10th:

In the name of Democracy and Peace -

Dear friends, first of all I extend my deep regards and thanks to the friends in the
University of California to provide the opportunity for me to be here and share my point
of view with you and inform you about the ongoing tragedy in my crying Afghanistan.

While the pro-democracy and anti-fundamentalists groups and individuals of Afghanistan are
being marginalized, suppressed and silenced, you give a helping hand to me as a small
voice of my suffering people to speak about the crisis in Afghanistan and terrible
conditions of its people. You in fact play your role in raising awareness on what is going
on in my devastated country.

Respected friends, over five years passed since the US-led attack on Afghanistan. Probably
many of you are not well aware of the current conditions of my country and expect me to
list the positive outcomes of the past years since the US invasion. But I am sorry to tell
you that Afghanistan is still chained in the fetters of the fundamentalist warlords and is
like an unconscious body taking its last breath.

The US government removed the ultra-reactionary and brutal regime of Taliban, but instead
of relying on Afghan people, pushed us from the frying pan into the fire and selected its
friends from among the most dirty and infamous criminals of the “Northern Alliance”, which
is made up of the sworn enemies of democracy and human rights, and are as dark-minded,
evil, and cruel as the Taliban.

The Western media talks about democracy and the liberation of Afghanistan, but the US and
its allies are engaged in the warlordization, criminalization and drug-lordization of our
wounded land.

more...

[BOSSHOG]

1. And they are having a bumper opium crop this year

heckuva job georgie!

[PDJane]

2. Yes........

moreover, the Taliban was founded, funded and trained by the US.

The whole war in Afghanistan thing, I have come to believe, was a result of embarassment with the regime that the US put in power. "Terrorism" had not one damn thing to do with it.

[enid602]

3. renaissance man

Junior and his policies have also facilitated the rise of the left in Latin America. Before this is over, I think you'll be able to say that he single-handedly was responsible for a worldwide rebirth of socialism and communism, which were moribund prior to his taking office. And who said Bush never achieved anything?

[CRH]

4. We teach and foment fundamentalism as a foreign policy ...

http://emperors-clothes.com/news/abc.htm

THE ABC'S OF JIHAD IN AFGHANISTAN * Courtesy, USA
By Joe Stephens and David B. Ottaway
Washington Post, 23 March 2002

=======================================
snip

President Bush and first lady Laura Bush have repeatedly spotlighted the Afghan textbooks in recent weeks. Last Saturday, Bush announced during his weekly radio address that the 10 million U.S.-supplied books being trucked to Afghan schools would teach "respect for human dignity, instead of indoctrinating students with fanaticism and bigotry."

snip

Published in the dominant Afghan languages of Dari and Pashtu, the textbooks were developed in the early 1980s under an AID grant to the University of Nebraska-Omaha and its Center for Afghanistan Studies. The agency spent $51 million on the university's education programs in Afghanistan from 1984 to 1994.

During that time of Soviet occupation, regional military leaders in Afghanistan helped the U.S. smuggle books into the country. They demanded that the primers contain anti-Soviet passages. Children were taught to count with illustrations showing tanks, missiles and land mines, agency officials said. They acknowledged that at the time it also suited U.S. interests to stoke hatred of foreign invaders.

snip

"The pictures the texts are horrendous to school students, but the texts are even much worse," said Ahmad Fahim Hakim, an Afghan educator who is a program coordinator for Cooperation for Peace and Unity, a Pakistan-based nonprofit.

snip (end of excerpts, read entire article for better context)

So to correct this problem of our past foreign policy, the originator of the original fundamentalist textbooks US AID, (a CIA front organization), recycled the same books minus some pictures, but, teaching the same fundamentalist violence. To much fan fare and photo opportunities, President and Laura Bush try to gain political mileage, promoting the very fundamentalism they speak against. This is exposed very well by the following article by Jered Israel.

http://emperors-clothes.com/articles/jared/jihad.htm

The Jihad Schoolbook Scandal...

Why has the US been Shipping Muslim Extremist Schoolbooks into Afghanistan...for 20 Years?

And why is President Bush hiding it?

By Jared Israel


snip

What about the new textbooks? Will they "teach tolerance and respect for human dignity" as Honest George promises?

To be precise (which may be unwise in today's world) how will the new textbooks that George Bush Junior is shipping into Afghanistan differ from the old ones? You know, those old books that were also designed at the University of Nebraska at Omaha and paid for by the US government agency, AID? You know, those old, un-American books that George Bush Junior attacked for "indoctrinating students with fanaticism and bigotry"? Those terrible old books that were shipped into Afghanistan by Bill Clinton and Ronald Reagan and George Bush Senior?

snip

So the Untied States government is right now shipping into Afghanistan millions of Islamic Fundamentalist schoolbooks whose texts, according to a non-Fundamentalist Afghan educator, are not just "horrendous," they are "much worse."

snip

Mr. Bush describes the texts of the old books as "indoctrinating students with fanaticism and bigotry." But note, having been republished in the new books, these exact same texts have been reborn. Now they are "religious instruction" (says US AID) and "religious content" (says the White House). It's a modern miracle.

snip

One should read the entire article for the full context in the recycling of violence prone and violence promoting foreign policy, from the Reagan Administration.

Other examples of the US government's promotion of Islamic fundamentalism as a strategy are linked below.

* 'Washington's Backing of Afghan Terrorists: Deliberate Policy'
By Steve Coll,
Reprinted from Washington Post, 19 July 1992
http://emperors-clothes.com/docs/anatomy.htm


New! 22 April 2002
* 'Dutch Report: US Sponsored Foreign Islamic Fundamentalists in Bosnia'
By Richard J Aldrich
Comments by Jared Israel
http://emperors-clothes.com/analysis/used.htm

Viewing the problems in Iraq now and the relations with Iran and other Middle East countries, it is obvious these past interventions in other nations' internal affairs, have generated their own consequences. Now, we reap the Karma we sow.

[marmar]

5. BushCo's version of democracy is bad for your health....

:scared: