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From AxisofLogic.com Featured
With today's news
of the death of "brutal butcher" Mullah Dadullah Lang, the Taliban's
second-in-command man with a "gruesome penchant for decapitation", one
is forced for a moment to contemplate the manner and method by each one
of us will meet our own certain and eventual end. So
the question of the day is, if you were a citizen of Afghanistan and
you could choose the method of your death, would you prefer to go
quickly, or would you rather wait to meet your maker, in a most
agonizing fashion - one that would take a very, very long time? Americans are rarely (if ever) told the truth about anything. So what is actually going down in To
get a better idea what has happened since the US first plundered into
Afghanistan in October, 2001 to search for a now-legendary cave hopper
on dialysis, I spoke with Dr. Mohammed Daud Miraki, a native Afghan
here in the United States with many ties "back home", to tell us all
about the long-forgotten people of Afghanistan that the US mainstream
media will not. After hanging up the phone, it occurred to me that what
is actually going down in A recent article in The Hindu Times gives us a glimpse into the creation of devastation in which the Steve Lendman, in "Afghanistan – The Other Lost War" shares a deeply disturbing account of reality in the nation where we are waging this long-ignored-but-not-forgotten war: "For
them [Afghans] life is harsh and dangerous, and they show their
frustration and impatience in their anger ready to boil over on any
pretext. As in Iraq, there's been little reconstruction providing
little relief from the devastation and making what work there is hard
to find and offering little pay…Unemployment is soaring at about 45% of
those wanting work… half of the working population getting it earns on
average about a meager $200 a year or a little over $300 for those
involved in the opium trade which is the main industry in the
country…about one-fourth of the population depends on scarce and hard
to find food aid creating a serious risk of famine… life expectancy in
the country at 44.5 years is one of the lowest in the world… infant
mortality rate is the highest in the world at 161 per 1,000
births…One-fifth of children die before age five…An Afghan woman dies
in childbirth every 30 minutes….In Kabul alone an estimated 500,000
people are homeless or living in makeshift and deplorable
conditions...Only one-fourth of the population has access to safe
drinking water and adequate sanitation…Only one doctor is available per
6,000 people and one nurse per 2,500 people...100 or more people are
killed or wounded each month by unexploded ordnance...Children are
being kidnapped and sold into slavery or murdered to harvest their
organs that bring a high price...Less than 6% of Afghans have access to
electricity available only sporadically… Women's literacy rate is about
19%, and schools are being burned in the south of the country and
teachers beheaded in front of their students…--Many women are also
forced to beg in the streets or turn to prostitution to
survive…lawlessness is back, Sharia law has been reinstated, the
internal conflict has resumed, and no one is safe either from the
country's warring factions or from the hostile occupying force making
life intolerable for the vast majority of the Afghan people." A disturbing scenario indeed. And lest Americans are tempted to believe this is nothing but liberal, anti-war rhetoric? One
gets the sense that things are pretty darn bad when even the Council On
Foreign Relations (arguably not exactly the bastion of progressive
ideals) is forced to admit at least some of this as the actual truth. The CFR recently featured on its website comments made by "it's been five years since the international community came to From the entire financial assistance that's been given to First, there is a waste in the way the money has been spent in The people are saying, 'We have played our part, we've played our role. You've asked us to participate in the political process, we did. But we don't see visible improvement in our daily life." To
get to the heart of the matter by someone who is intimately familiar
with the current situation, I contacted Afghanistan native and author
of Afghanistan After Democracy, Dr. Mohammed Daud Miraki, to get his take on how the people of CG: MDM: There were two reasons, actually. One was to really expose what is really going on there…the truth, for the common folks to know what's going on in Sure, the big power benchmark of elections, constitution? These
things are simply words - intangibles. They do not mean anything to the
common people. To them, what matters is food, a warm place to sleep and
spend their nights in winter, and have basic necessities, medical care.
To make sure that their kids don't die from cold, from infections, from
other conditions. But all that…they not only cease to have these
services, the common people, but even whatever rudimentary services in
terms of health care, they cease to exist - they exist… but
nonetheless, they are not provided because even doctors nowadays ask
for bribes! So if you're poor? A government hospital is no place to go, either, because even there, doctors and nurses take bribes. And
the second reason for producing this book was the hope that I could
raise some funds…to pay for the land that I actually lost a month and a
half or so ago. In CG: When did it "hit" you that Americans don't have any idea what's going on inside MDM: - Actually it happened when I was in I
told them, "Let's make this a pictorial presentation in the form of a
book, and open people's eyes and see if that works! And everyone said,
Yeah, it makes sense. Let's go for it! Go
right ahead. That's a really superb idea. Lots of people will be
fascinated or saddened or whatever, or surprised - but nonetheless,
they will be informed. So having said that, I'd made sure that I'd
taken all these photos and documented what I'd jotted down, and then
subsequently when I came here, we produced it – and a lot of optimism,
I think. The
whole purpose was – the idea was, I'll show people these photos and
say, Hey look, this is how life is over there. But the whole thing is,
how this conceptualized into a book, was sitting that evening in a
hotel room and I thought to myself that evening was, instead of me just
roaming around, showing these to people, how life is there, let's make
it into a formal book, so people could look at it. And meanwhile, the
revenue from the book will benefit people here. And I thought by
purchasing this land, I would have something tangible to show to
people, and this tangibility would serve as a cornerstone for
extracting more funds from whatever sources to build a hospital and
such facilities. Because unless you have something to show to people –
tangible that you're able to result it into, people will not be too
optimistic of what you're doing. So this book was to produce these
funds and hopefully, produce it in terms of land for which a hospital
or such will be built. And that will serve as a domino effect for concerned people worldwide. CG: - Why do you want a hospital for the people of MDM:
-There are a few hospitals over there, but first and foremost there is
the age of corruption… widespread corruption, no investment in health
care, there's infant mortalities gone through the roof, mortality rate
of women during childbirth has gone through the roof, and really, some
of the hospitals you have that have gotten so deteriorated they look
like medieval hospices, rather than hospitals! Secondly, this hospital would not be solely a hospital, per se. Rather,
the hospital would be the operational wing of a research facility. The
research facility would be a kind of a "mother ship" for collecting
data throughout So
I subscribe strongly to herbal medicine, alternative medicine, and by
having such an approach and by getting various resources, various
people who have innovative, diverse approaches dealing with these
matters? I could create really an
innovative center that could treat people for various ailments and
detoxification that could become a regional center. CG: - You know such about Uranium in weapons and its effects on health. Are you thinking that your medical facility would fulfill the people's needs? MDM:
- Yes, the whole thing was to produce, build this facility, the aim
will be – this would become a hospital, a research facility, if you
will. But it would become part of a paradigm shift in health care that
would provide healthcare to everyone throughout the country and train
other physicians in alternative medicine. Train doctors and nurses how
to deal with various ailments, environmental researchers how to deal
with cleaning the [uranium-contaminated] soil….kind of a widespread,
expansive approach to well-being. My
philosophy is that if you want to take care of somebody's ailment, you
have to look at that person in his totality, he or she, in his or her
environment, in conjunction with that person. And then you can treat
the person in such a way that could benefit the person or the people
there. CG: - The people don't have any socialized medicine? MDM: - Initially, before these issues, they had socialized medicine, yes. The
infrastructure is still there, but the problem is that there is more
money invested in the so-called "war on drugs" deception nonsense - the
"war on drugs" - than on medicine! Then,
this whole idea, making the economy the dollar as the cornerstone of
everything, has really induced people to simply want to earn dollars
rather than be concerned about the well-being of others! Worse thing
is, doctors – the last people in the world you would expect - doctors
want to take bribes and perform surgery and at the end of surgery you
will hear "Where's my gift?" So
people, the type of dependence that they had on hospital and
facilities? They cease to have those dependencies because they can't
count on them, because if they do, they have to have money. Officially
they don't ask for money, but when your procedure is done or a visit is
performed, they ask for money, under the table. And people are just
simply are desperate and they don't know what to do. CG: - Was it like this before 9/11 and the subsequent MDM: - Oh no, not at all! Medicine
there – people would go to the hospital and they would be given the
best care possible at that time. Sometimes they didn't have medicines
themselves, the patients, at the time, because the government did not
have the money to supply the medicine. Mostly, they would rely on
donations, from outside world medical donations. But
now, because everyone is concerned about how to make green, green
dough, everyone is concerned with how to really rip the other person
off, no matter what the context of the rip off is – whether they're in
medicine, whether they're in administration, whether they're regular
folks. It's just a complete mess! It is
absolutely hopeless for the common people because those in power are
actually the utmost corrupt, from Karzai all the way to the very
bottom, eager to fill their pockets rather than being concerned about
others. CG: - Has the MDM: - The CG: - Do you think that's why we are not reading much of this in the media, because they're shielding us from this truth? MDM: - That's the main reason, because they just want to put the really positive spin on it. All this is fine! We've done a superb job! We've done democracy. We've done liberation. All this is crap. Nothing really is going on. The fact of the matter is? It's disaster - on many levels. CG: -
I was shocked to see the pictures in your book, the pictures of the
children, not going to school, but rather, going out in the streets
every day, trying to earn money in the streets. Is that what you mean
by disaster? MDM:
- Exactly! Children ages 7, 6 and up to teens, they are outside till
late at night, actually endangering themselves to the common criminal
element, who are preying on children. In fact, they kidnap those
children for various purposes. They are actually selling them for
prostitution, they are actually kidnapping them for their organs, to
sell them for transplant to the highest bidder. These
people do not get anything. They are basically running around, hoping
to survive, at what they know best, which is basically begging and
cleaning car windows. If they have some money, somehow found? They buy
gum and sell it, so that people can buy gum for them. CG: – In your book you said that children would walk an hour or 5 miles to get into MDM: - Yes, in order to get to CG: - And there are not any big soup kitchens - or anything like that to take care of people? MDM: - Oh no, no. Nothing like that! In fact there was an orphanage in CG: - That is horrible! MDM: - It's absolutely horrendous. Think about it. Within CG: - Your book shows there a great disparity between the very poor and the very rich. MDM: -
Yes, so these various NGOs [non-governmental organizations] and
consulting firms, they get millions of dollars in US contracts, they
simply get these contracts to share them for their employees. And the
common people who can't afford to live in the city, they get pushed
out, or they try to subsist or try to survive in bombed-out buildings,
or tents, or shacks here and there – they just build some ways to try
to shield themselves from the elements. And then, when the night is
over, they get out and try to survive. So
the result of that extreme amount of corruption at the social level
also, has emerged. And so, society…society has turned into crap. It has
become trashed. So it is a difficult thing, and when you, if you have
money, let's say, to purchase land in If
the judge asks you permission for this, the police ask, Okay, where is
my share? That is, if you want them to implement what the judge has
said. CG:
- Did people lose their homes because the economy fell and there are no
more jobs to be able to support themselves and afford them? MDM: - Many people lost their jobs, but first and foremost, what happened is that when the Northern Alliance came in with the I
went there to secure my own land that was actually taken over by
somebody else! That's why I went there in 2005 and also, on top of
that, I was trying to unveil what was really going on in 2005. And when I looked at all these situations there? I was simply speechless. I said, this is hopeless! And then in 2006, I went there again, and the situation had gotten even worse, especially in winter. My God, it's horrific! CG: - Are the pictures in your book, that of a very filthy, dirty city – it didn't always look like this? How has it gotten worse? MDM: - No! It
was much cleaner, there were sanitary conditions, and at least the
mayor's office had a budget for cleaning the city. And it was a
reasonable place. But now, whatever rudimentary infrastructure that
existed got collapsed throughout the years, and instead of investing
the so-called development money in that? They're simply investing that
into symbolic nonsense of democratic projects – this project, that
project, which is nothing but BS! They
should be investing in how to build sewage facilities, how to build
sewage infrastructure and canals to clean the city and prevent
infections and other diseases, but that's not an issue. Because they
say, that's public projects are not profitable. They just invest in
things that are supposed to bring them money. When
you create a living environment that's fit for animals? Because just
everyone is after everyone, trying to outdo the other person, in
whatever way is possible. They do not behave in ways that are expected
of them. For example, on the one hand you have the So people [who live in You have the dichotomy of disaster… and a few with riches. CG: - Are there any significant aid relief agencies there, trying to help the people? MDM:
- There are agencies there, yes. Nonetheless, there are some legitimate
aid agencies there, but they're overwhelmed! The problem is too big.
The problems are too many, and too vast to tackle. And there is no
really systematic … What's going on is that first, the aid really goes
through certain corporations, certain designated NGOs. Whatever they choose to spend it on? They spend it. They
bypass the needs criteria that the government, or at least the
administrative infrastructure, formulates and say, okay, these are the
basic needs of people and they should be tackled first. They bypass
that and do whatever they want to do with that money. They pocket most
of it. They're rich or "fat", if you will, and they just take a hike
and leave. And
so, of the billions of dollars that supposedly went to Afghanistan,
twenty-three percent of that went to the Afghan government, which
mostly went to the basic needs of running the government. But the other
seventy-seven percent of or so of that went into the pockets of the
NGOs, consulting firms. For example, in the case of the US, eighty-six
cents of every dollar that the CG: - It's not actually going to put fruit and vegetables on people's tables? MDM: - Forty-seven percent of all the aid goes to overpriced experts! They will go to someone and say, How should you do this thing? He
then gets $18,000 a month for whatever stupid opinion he or she has.
And the very opinions are widely available through Afghan experts who
would more than happy to accept $1,800 a month, instead of $18,000 per
month! But that's not how it works, because
the corporations they designate their own people, they find their own
individuals, to fill their pockets. That's how things works. Those few companies that actually serve as lobbyists in Congress are the ones that get the contracts for work in CG: – What do you know about the combat that's still going on? MDM: - Combat is really widespread. Combat is going on in mostly west and southwest. South and southeast in The
NATO forces and US forces are in constant military action, bombardments
as we speak. They use munitions, Depleted Uranium munitions on their
targets. It's a total disaster. People
can't travel. They will be robbed and killed by someone, or they will
just be caught in crossfire between the insurgents and the Uranium is all over. While I was in The
people though? They don't know about this…the issues of Uranium and so
forth? That's a luxury for them. They're focusing about food, about
shelter, about medical care. Those issues are beyond them. Even
the government did not want to address this until I pushed them, and
until I brought the issue to the office of the President there as well
as to the Ministry of Public Health. They did not want to touch the
issue! They said, "Oh that's controversial". Well, controversial rather what? "That affects the people, so what the hell is wrong with you people?" I told them! Those
who are in power are cowards and they have their own interests to worry
about rather than to worry about what's really going on. CG: - I was floored about the numbers of early deaths. Nearly
one-hundred percent don't expect to survive past forty-five and one in
five children don't make it until age five. Is this correct? MDM: - Yeah, one in five children don't make it to their fifth birthday. And
also the projection of them dying after the fifth year is extremely
high and childbirth mortality for women is extremely high.
Statistically, from whatever angle, this is a disaster for the
population. This whole notion of re-building and reconstruction is nothing but a total lie. It has not amounted to anything. If you go to They
worry about and hope that somebody will come out of those places, and
they will donate a few bucks to them and then they could go and eat. You've seen the pictures of the trash in CG: - Where are they getting their fresh water? MDM: - There is no fresh water. There are some wells dug in houses they end up using. One reservoir in It is not very expensive for clean water. They
could produce clean water. There is no budget for them because every
amount of money that's donated from abroad has to be approved for
certain projects. If that project is not in the domain of acceptability
of the donor, irrespective of how needed it is for the common people,
it will not be implemented. So, So
the question remains, with heavy military combat dispersing toxic,
radioactive Uranium contamination in the air, high rates of cancer,
short life expectancy and high death rates for children, filthy
polluted rivers and a vast shortage of clean, uncontaminated water, the
necessity of finding shelter at night in bombed-out buildings and
begging in the streets for a loaf of bread…what sort of life is this
for any human to endure? Is
a quick demise perhaps sometimes more of a blessing – a more humane way
to be allowed to go and meet one's maker…than a life filled with
protracted, unfathomable amounts of hunger, thirst, grief and illness,
of endless pain, misery, hopelessness, and suffering? After hearing what has happened in On Saturday, May 19, Dr. Miraki will be speaking at the National DU Conference http://www.wfn.org/2007/05/msg00127.html at Cathy
Garger is a freelance writer, public speaker, and certified personal
coach. Living in the shadow of the national District of Crime, Cathy is
constantly nauseated by the stench emanating from the nation's capital
during the © Copyright 2007 by AxisofLogic.com
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