Some Good News From Afghanistan..

[Peacetrain]

We worked hard trying to get the plight of the Afghani women in the media through the 90's. There was only one dilapidated hospital available for them. Women could be killed, maimed, acid thrown on them, beaten with no repercussions for the assailants.

I am putting this article here, because it shows, hope grows in even the most desperate places.

The Taliban are the Nazis in the real sense of the Muslim world. This is a tribal community and state, but reading this gives me hope for a much beleaguered people.



Peter Bergen | Bio
AC360° Contributor
CNN National Security Analyst

The first surprise is Kabul airport. The new terminal — “a gift of the people of Japan” — appears to have been airlifted in from a small American city; light-filled, modern and staffed by young men in uniforms of khaki pants and blue shirts who politely answer travelers’ questions as they direct traffic through the quiet, marble halls of the terminal.

This is quite a change from the old Kabul airport terminal, which was not much more than a big shed that broiled in summer and froze in winter with one wheezing baggage belt disgorging luggage to a chaotic press of travelers.

http://ac360.blogs.cnn.com/2009/09/04/the-afghan-phoenix/

[tekisui]

1. Lipstick on a dead pig. Get out now.

From the editorial:

Of course none of this is to deny the existence of epic corruption in Afghanistan, the massive drug trade, the scandal of billions of dollars of aid wasted on failed aid projects that have principally enriched giant American contractors like DynCorp, and the resurgence of the Taliban.

These are all too real, but they are only part of the story, and for Afghans who have lived through an invasion by a totalitarian superpower that killed one in ten of their family members, then a civil war that killed many more, and then the Taliban who brought security at the price of living in a completely failed theocratic state, the most important fact is that history is now behind them and that the future promises something better.

http://ac360.blogs.cnn.com/2009/09/04/the-afghan-phoenix/

[Peacetrain]

2. Russia did kill one in 10.. It was bloody awful, and one of the

things that gave rise to the Taliban.. Hell Bin Laden was one of our people when we were using Afghanistan as a battlefield for the cold war.

Russians had been fighting the West in Afghanistan for a century if the truth be told. Also one the outcomes of that, is the most land mine saturated country in the world.

[IntravenousDemilo]

3. Shit, I thought the good news was that we were getting out of there. n/m

[Peacetrain]

5. I hear that.. with some progress such as this, it should make it easier

to pull out.
• More than five million refugees have returned home since the fall of the Taliban. This is one of the most substantial refugee repatriations in history, yet it is little remarked upon because it has largely gone so smoothly.

• One in six Afghans now has a cell phone. Under the Taliban there was no phone system.

• Millions of kids are now in school, including many girls. Under the Taliban girls were not allowed to be educated.

• In 2008, Afghanistan’s real GDP growth was 7.5 percent. Under the Taliban the economy was in free fall.

[Enrique]

8. we've been there eight years

and I don't seen any signs at all that we are even planning on how to get out. In fact it looks like we're getting in deeper. Those signs of progress are good things, but imo they are not progress towards us getting out.

[IntravenousDemilo]

10. I don't even have a cell phone. Time to bring 'em home.

Your country and mine, I wish we'd mind our own fucking business.

[otohara]

4. Thanks For Posting

I for one am glad for any glimmer of improvement for the lives of the Afghan people.

Fuck the Taliban - evil bastards.

[Peacetrain]

6. I know what you mean... to see improvement, especially in their gdp

it will make it easier for us to unwind Afghanistan. This is maybe the first real hard glimmer of hope for us getting out of there that I have seen

[Clio the Leo]

7. Kick and a Rec. NT

[elocs]

9. This is DU: Good news about Afganistan is frowned upon.

Bad news, on the other hand, is an "I told you so" moment.

I wonder what the word will be around here if and when we leave and the Taliban takes over and imposes Islamic law with women being killed and abused. There is not a perfect solution to this because once we inserted ourselves rightly or wrongly in that country we became part of what was happening and what will happen.