Western aid workers drive past Afghan beggars cradling naked,dirty children

[NNN0LHI]

http://www.khaleejtimes.com/DisplayArticleNew.asp?xfile=data/subcontinent/2006/May/subcontinent_May1087.xml§ion=subcontinent&col=

Unwelcome Western influences, unchecked poverty sour many Afghans on foreigners
(AP)

31 May 2006



KABUL, Afghanistan - Western aid workers drive past Afghan beggars cradling naked, dirty children. US military vehicles race through trash-strewn streets with their guns pointed into traffic.

To many Afghans, foreigners are a privileged elite, earning hefty salaries and given to drinking alcohol while this shattered Islamic nation remains mired in violence and poverty.

That divide helped stoke on Monday’s deadly anti-Western riots, the latest of several bouts of unrest that have wracked Afghanistan in the past year. The worst riots seen in Kabul for years began after a US military truck whose brakes failed careered down a hill and plowed into cars at an intersection, killing at least one Afghan. snip

“We don’t want these foreigners, they should go home. They’re damaging our society, the economy is terrible and we’re so poor. And they’re looting Afghanistan. Why aren’t they building factories?” asked Faisal Agha, who was injured in the riots that left at least 11 dead and scores wounded.

“Now there’s prostitution, alcohol. There’s more vice,” the 45-year-old policeman said from his hospital bed, his eyes puffy and face bruised after falling during Monday’s chaos.

[izzie]

1. One just does not see that part of life I guess

I think that was what happened during WW2. You had so many boys just off the farm so to speak, that they looked at what they saw with different eyes than the professional military man does now. I feel I was really wrong to want to see the draft to go. The people seemed to have more control over the gov. when our sons had to go in. I am thinking more and more it was a big error on our part. We need the citizen fighter back and it, I think, would make less wars.The whole military thing seems out of line with the private armies etc. and a professional fighting army. It does not go with a democracy

[Jeffersons Ghost]

5. don't you just HATE those towel-heads?

{b]go right ahead and hate them

Listen children to a story
That was written long ago
'Bout a kingdom on a mountain
And the valley folk below
On the mountain was a treasure
Buried deep beneath a stone
And the valley people swore they'd
Have it for their very own

Go ahead and hate your neighbor
Go ahead and cheat a friend
Do it in the name of heaven
You can justify it in the end
There won't be any trumpets blowing
Come the judgment day
On the bloody morning after
One tin soldier rides away

So the people of the valley
Sent a message up the hill
Asking for the buried treasure
Tons of gold for which they'd kill
Came an answer from the kingdom
With our brothers we will share
All the secrets of our mountain
All the riches buried there

Now the valley cried with anger
Mount your horses draw your sword
And they killed the mountain people
So they won their just reward
Now they stood beside the treasure
On the mountain dark and red
Turned the stone and looked beneath it
Peace on earth was all it said

[LuckyLib]

2. But where's the good news in Afghanistan? The country is

in a shambles, the government is barely functioning, Osama and the Taliban are loose and fomenting insurgency, and poppy growing to feed the world opium/heroin addiction is at an all-time high. Thanks, George. Mission accomplished!

[soup]

3. the bright side...

Afghanistan's first five-star hotel opens amid building boom giving Kabul a makeover

Four years after the Taliban's ouster, a shiny new office building rises amid Kabul's traditional mud-colored buildings and there is a glitzy shopping mall boasting the country's only escalators. A bright U.S. Embassy is nearly ready, and suburbs of new homes are springing up.
http://www.nctimes.com/articles/2005/11/09/business/news/19_59_4211_8_05.txt

There is also Sherpur, a central neighborhood that once contained an army barracks surrounded by poor squatters' huts. Two years ago, it was taken over by government officials. The huts were razed and the land parceled out to people with money and connections. Now, dozens of mansions are being built there.

Unlike typical Afghan homes, which have muted colors, simple materials and shrouded windows, the new houses seem designed to attract attention with vivid tiles, elaborate balconies and ornate columns. A 10-foot-high eagle statue perches on one roof, wings outstretched.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/08/AR2005120801881_pf.html

The new shopping centre is in a 10-storey building – a skyscraper by Kabul’s modest standards - in the central Shar-e-Naw district. Inside an eye-catching mirrored glass exterior, the first four floors are given over to shops, with the 130-room Safi Landmark hotel occupying the upper six stories. The hotel boasts such amenities as a health club, conference rooms and cable television.

The mall itself has three all-glass lifts and four escalators, quite a sight for Kabul residents who often have no running water or electricity at home.
http://www.iwpr.net/?p=arr&s=f&o=257693&apc_state=heniarr200511

Safi Landmark Hotel
Land Mark Group of Hotel,P.O.Box 430, Kabul Afghanistan

# 90 Spacious well furnished and equipped guest rooms
# 40 Spacious well furnished and equipped Suite rooms
# Individually controlled Air Condition and Heating System
# Business Centre/ Banqueting facilities
# Airport Transfer and Valet Parking
# Money Exchange / Non smoking rooms
# Mini bar/ Hair-Dryer/ Safe Deposit Box/ IDD Phone
# Satellite Television / Data Port
# 24-hrs R/Service, Security , Reception , H/Keeping
# Shamiana Restaurant
http://www.southtravels.com/asia/afghanistan/safilandmark/

Business was booming, said Hassan Saidzada, the manager of a watch shop in Kabul's glitziest shopping centre. Cabinet ministers, jihadi commanders and newly made tycoons were flocking in again, he boasted, waving a hand across a softly lit display of sparkling Swiss watches.

"We recently had the chief executive of a mobile phone company," he said, straightening his tie. "He bought a Breitling for $4,000 <£2,307>."

Business was awful, said Malik Shah, a 26-year-old labourer kicking his heels on the freezing pavement outside. He had been standing there since dawn, he said, hoping for a day's work that might earn him $4. But so far, nothing had come up.

Another 40 men waited beside him, wrapped in woollen shawls against the penetrating chill. None had been inside the watch shop or Kabul City Centre, the plaza that boasted three floors of heated shops, a cappuccino bar and Afghanistan's first escalator. "They don't allow people dressed like us," said Shah, pointing to his ragged pants.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/afghanistan/story/0,,1674404,00.html



photo source: http://www.icsc.org/srch/sct/sct0506/coverstory_kabul.php


I supplied links above, but there's not much else worth reading besides what has been posted here. The rest is just destruction, poverty, corruption, death, starvation - ho hum. - nothing to worry our beautiful minds over...


There are days when I'm afraid to even cry. The tears may never stop.

[Jeffersons Ghost]

4. Kicked and Recommended

:kick:

[NNN0LHI]

6. This is Bush's idea of liberating people n/t

[Bluerthanblue]

7. "Freedoms just another word for nothing left to lose..."

... we're speading freedom to many people-

hell, death is freedom- if you look at it that way.

What a frickin mess we've made of this world-
And to what end???

[knitter4democracy]

8. Time to make something for Afghans for Afghans.

Good group.

http://afghansforafghans.com/

[NNN0LHI]

9. Is this what Bush sent our troops to kill and be killed for? n/t