While Bush’s war on terror has often been criticised by liberals for its unilateralism and cowboy-style-guns-a-blazing, I wonder how many Obama supporters will react to this recent expose – that the current administration is continuing with CIA practice to use spy drones to target suspected terrorists in Pakistan even if their full identities are unknown. In brief, this means, assassinating people who might be innocent. Continue reading
1000 days and still counting
15 MarI thought this was an excellent piece by an Al Jazeera correspondent on the situation in Gaza. Even with the UN endorsement of the Goldstone report, which only limits itself to the 2008/9 invasion, there remains something much more dire that has since escaped international attention. It is the state of Israel’s economic blockade that is slowly but surely killing the lives and dreams of ordinary civilians in Gaza. Continue reading
Security over women’s rights in Afghanistan
8 FebWe have been repeatedly rammed down our throats the rationale for supporting the invasion of Afghanistan – the myth that this is a ‘war against terror’. A war to eradicate and stop terrorists from destabilising the region and the world. A war against Islamic fundamentalisms advocated by the likes of groups such as Al Qaeda and the Taliban that preaches extremist beliefs and practices including those against women. Continue reading
Women voices from Afghanistan
7 DecAl Jazeera has reported on the Afghan Women’s Writing Project (AWWP), an English language blog which is written by women in the war-torn country. Given that women rights are seriously curtailed in Afghanistan, these writers have to write under conditions of anonymity and fear of personal safety.
According to the founder of the blog, an American novelist, Masha Hamilton, ‘We don’t just put anything up. It’s a dialogue and a communication. We want to help them express their stories, and their writing often becomes more personal as time goes on.’
Reading some of the entries, one is reminded of the plight of women in Aghanistan. In the blog entry titled, Sitara, Roya (not her real name) documents the violence perpetuated against a girl who simply wants to go to school:
… That day that she [Sitara] got burned, it was her father who burned her, her father who killed her. He didn’t like Sitara or her mother. When he burned her, he forbid her to go to the hospital because there were male doctors there. The neighbors helped her and her mother to the hospital…
Or the poem by Freshta, her hopes for a more enlightened and better government. This is an excerpt:
Afghans suffers pain, trial, labor, grief, sorrow, tragedy.
Now the president needs to serve them
Serve for people, serve those who need
Serve for those who have lost their families, loved ones who live only in memory.
Serve for those who have lost their parents, who had dignity but are now called orphans.
Serve for orphans who hide their face with their hands and hear the slap of tongues when they say thanks.
Serve for orphans who watch other parents caress their children
Tears come from their eyes as thunder appears in the sky.
Tears of hopelessness, discouragement, depression.
Serve for people, serve for those who need
A project worth supporting.
Anti- war Protest – 6th anniversary of the Iraqi Invasion
22 MarThe Gaza Defence Committee and Stop the War Coalition held an anti-war protest on yesterday afternoon at Sydney Town Hall which saw an attendance of about 200 participants. Continue reading