Via Flickr:
Begging at Karachi's premier market, Empress. Poverty is on the rise as inflation breaks new records, as more and more firms are closed down, and as more Pakistanis leave the country for good. Further afield, many Afghans are pouring down with no limbs or no hands or both, courtesy Soviet era land mines, which have devastated entire families and a way of life. Nine out of ten chances are that this beggar belongs to Afghanistan.
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3 comments:
Not to be too critical, but one would think, with all the billions that the US as spent in Afghanistan, some employment programs for those injured by mines could be implemented. I'm sure that there must be some NGO's doing this type of work, but it needs to be greatly expanded.
Many Afghans are maimed for life because Soviets wanted to exact revenge on the poor souls, who'd helped Americans fight their war. But instead of helping them US pulled out soon and allowed vacuum to develop in Afghanistan. Thousands of them were maimed and killed. And when US again came down hard, this time against Osama, then many hundreds of thousands of them got maimed and killed. I personally hold US foreign policies for this tragedy. And this is just one example. You can read Israeli-Palestinian conflict and will find negative US role there as well.
I am entirely in agreement. Ronald Reagan loved the mujahadeen when they were fighting the Soviets, but completely lost all interest in any rebuilding of Afghanistan.
Our invasion in 2001 was really to find Osama, which it took the US ten years to accomplish. We have ignored how much the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has shaped hostility to the US in the Muslim world, we have closed our eyes to this reality. Our "rebuilding" of the Afghan nation is 99% propaganda, and 1% schools, wells, and bridges!
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