Afghan.

1. What you know about the culture, people, and history of Afghanistan?

Afghanistan is an old country that has a severe history of wars and political turmoil due to its position in Asia. The Khyber Pass links Afghanistan directly to India as well as Russia. What I believe to have begun the problems in this country is when the Soviets invaded it in December of1979, in an attempt to prop up a pro-communist regime which led to the states getting involved. Afghanistan was always considered the underdogs. Being one of the world’s poorest countries with little resources and untapped mineral and petroleum stores they were often taken advantage of and still to this day are. The biggest crops are corn, barley, rice, wheat, fruits, vegetables, cotton, tobacco, madder, castor beans and sugar beans. Another big source of income comes from sheep farming and the Opium Poppy better known as Heroin. Afghanistan is on a long road to recovery, everything has been stripped to ruins; the economy, environment and the infrastructure are a mess.


2. What you know about military intervention as being the current alternative.

As for the military intervention going on in Afghanistan I think that it is a waste of time and men. Afghanistan is the country with the most refugees in the world. It has had 7 years of drought and 25 years of war, which is still going on to this day. In the beginning it was a noble mission but somewhere since then it has became useless and quite unhelpful. A quote from this war/mission was, “If I see someone moving around at night I’m just going to shoot them.” What kind of a peace mission is that? They went to hold and bring some sort of peace, instead of shoot at will. Another question is why is President Obama sending 17,000 troops overseas? The rural nature of Afghanistan is exactly why the US cannot defeat the Taliban. They only have enough forces to control certain urban areas. In order to beat them they would need hundreds of thousands more troops, more men more deaths. No one can know for sure but it seems that Obama thinks that since 20,000 extra troops could suppress violence in Iraq then 30,000 should do the same job in Afghanistan. Another thing that the military leaders should re-think is, are they actually wanted there? The people in Afghanistan are receiving cross messages, on one side this is considered a peace mission but on the other side more troops keep on getting brought in. We need to remind ourselves that we are sending hundreds of thousands of people into these countries who do not share the religion, who do not understand the culture, who do not have kinship relations with local people, and who do not even speak the language.

3. What you know about media influencing opinions about the Afghan war?

When it comes to the media and Afghanistan the report back is very limited, and it doesn’t ease or supply any information. Every once and a while you will hear updates or if there were any Canadian soldiers killed. People at home don’t get the whole story, they don’t even get half the story. It’s not reporters fault though, it’s the big networks that have the specific guidelines on what can be shown on television and unless people go out and looks for the truth they won’t find it. It never shows the good deeds done, or how we are improving. It shows the worst and that what are brains have been trained for to take in. The opinions caused by the media shown are that there’s nothing wrong, the military has everything covered, but is this the truth? Is that what we want to hear about?

4. What we need to consider for a successful, peaceful solution?

What the people at home need to consider for a peaceful solution in Afghanistan are that maybe, the people there don’t want their foreign help (which was a serious point from the beginning). What has sending thousands of soldiers overseas accomplished besides a high causality rate and more problems cause? Having all these soldiers come in and try to control them has just made them rebel even more than before. Yes, maybe there has been some improvement but how many lives have been ruined or worse ended to further this ‘peace’ mission? My opinion is to pull out and let them deal with there problems. It wasn’t our place to stick our heads is and it needs to resolve itself without the death rates. The things that upset me the most is the citizens killed and the afterbang of it all. It’s the children who are affected the most. If you think about it, it we would all feel a lot different about this situation if this was happening on your home ground.