Simon Moyle is a Melbourne [Australia] Baptist Minister, husband and father of three.
He decided to visit Afghanistan and see for himself the situation there.
"Afghanistan has from the very beginning been sold to us as "the good war". Yet precious little information about the situation on the ground is allowed to filter through to the Australian people. With a Defence Department which routes everything through its PR department, I decided to travel to Afghanistan to see for myself.
What I saw and heard there belies most of what we are told by our government.
No one - it seems - in Afghanistan supports the Karzai government, with the exception of government officials and the military. Karzai is seen as entirely corrupt and out of touch with everyday people, and his warlord Parliament are only interested in their own wealth. People just get on with their lives, resigned to this veneer of democracy being impenetrable for the ordinary Afghan, with no expectation that these criminals will represent their interests. The only thing stopping the government from being entirely irrelevant is the amount of aid money which flows straight into their pockets, a source of anger for ordinary Afghans.
As a result, even aid has become suspect in Afghanistan - so much of it is militarised, tainted by partisan interests or stripped bare by corruption that only the bravest, most foolish and most desperate are willing to receive it.
Meanwhile, according to a World Health Organisation worker at my hotel, there is nothing stopping the open sewers in the streets of Kabul from running into the water supply. There is no sanitation, and he is shocked a massive outbreak of cholera has not occurred. Additionally, the poor air quality in Kabul kills 3000 people a year through respiratory disease.
Unemployment is at 40%, and people still have to survive on an average wage of $200 per year. Meanwhile, security contractors earn up to $350 per hour. Afghans see this disparity and understandably conclude we are not there to help them.
Poverty and insecurity are in such dire proportions that the day before I departed for Afghanistan, the International Committee for the Red Cross - normally conservative in their statements - declared life for ordinary Afghans to be "untenable".
Women, too, are no more liberated. Outside of Kabul every woman I saw wore a burqua; even inside Kabul most women still wear one. The best work being done in this respect is by organisations like the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan (RAWA), and courageous individual women who risk their lives; a job made harder by the perception that such groups are Western influenced."
He decided to visit Afghanistan and see for himself the situation there.
"Afghanistan has from the very beginning been sold to us as "the good war". Yet precious little information about the situation on the ground is allowed to filter through to the Australian people. With a Defence Department which routes everything through its PR department, I decided to travel to Afghanistan to see for myself.
What I saw and heard there belies most of what we are told by our government.
No one - it seems - in Afghanistan supports the Karzai government, with the exception of government officials and the military. Karzai is seen as entirely corrupt and out of touch with everyday people, and his warlord Parliament are only interested in their own wealth. People just get on with their lives, resigned to this veneer of democracy being impenetrable for the ordinary Afghan, with no expectation that these criminals will represent their interests. The only thing stopping the government from being entirely irrelevant is the amount of aid money which flows straight into their pockets, a source of anger for ordinary Afghans.
As a result, even aid has become suspect in Afghanistan - so much of it is militarised, tainted by partisan interests or stripped bare by corruption that only the bravest, most foolish and most desperate are willing to receive it.
Meanwhile, according to a World Health Organisation worker at my hotel, there is nothing stopping the open sewers in the streets of Kabul from running into the water supply. There is no sanitation, and he is shocked a massive outbreak of cholera has not occurred. Additionally, the poor air quality in Kabul kills 3000 people a year through respiratory disease.
Unemployment is at 40%, and people still have to survive on an average wage of $200 per year. Meanwhile, security contractors earn up to $350 per hour. Afghans see this disparity and understandably conclude we are not there to help them.
Poverty and insecurity are in such dire proportions that the day before I departed for Afghanistan, the International Committee for the Red Cross - normally conservative in their statements - declared life for ordinary Afghans to be "untenable".
Women, too, are no more liberated. Outside of Kabul every woman I saw wore a burqua; even inside Kabul most women still wear one. The best work being done in this respect is by organisations like the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan (RAWA), and courageous individual women who risk their lives; a job made harder by the perception that such groups are Western influenced."
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