Afghanistan's disheartened

[unhappycamper]

Ghorai, a resident of Helmand who lives in a camp near Kabul, describes the violence at home that wounded her relatives.


Afghanistan's disheartened
By Joshua Partlow
Washington Post Foreign Service
Monday, November 22, 2010

KABUL - For those who have escaped Afghanistan's worst violence, some things are hard to forget: the sight of a woman's hair entangled in the mulberry branches, her legs strewn far away in the dirt. Or the sounds they heard as they hid in an underground hole, counting the bombs to pass the time, praying the American troops would leave.

Some of those Afghans have tiptoed in the footsteps of neighbors to avoid the mines. They've been hit with shrapnel and tied with flex cuffs, threatened by the Taliban and frightened by the coalition, seen relatives shot and homes destroyed. So they left Helmand province and made their way to this dirt lot on the outskirts of Kabul, where month by month the settlement expands with those who have come to wait out the war.

"In a situation like this," said Sayid Mohammad, a Helmand native who has spent the past year at the refugee camp, "how could I ever go home?"

As President Obama and his advisers assess the war in Afghanistan, Helmand province, an arid and impoverished swath of southern Afghanistan, will be an important gauge of progress. Helmand is the place with the highest concentration of American troops, and the site of the first major operation under the new military strategy, when U.S. Marines in February retook the Taliban-held area of Marja. Coalition commander Gen. David H. Petraeus now points to parts of Helmand, such as Nawa, as examples of counterinsurgency success.

But the Helmand refugees living in this squalid camp, known as Charahi Qambar, offer a bleaker assessment. They blame insecurity on the presence of U.S. and British troops, and despite official claims of emerging stability, these Afghans believe their villages are still too dangerous to risk returning.

[social_critic]

1. David Petraeous

Is a rock star general. The kind this nation doesn't need. The president ought to transfer him to a truck washing outfit at Ft Hood, and change strategy in Afghanistan.

The best solution would be to recruit Republican volunteers who want to become Afghan citizens and fight for that country. I am sure hundreds of thousands of Republican fire breathers, led by Sean Hannity and Sarah Palin, would volunteer. We can package them, send them via UPS, and bring our troops home.

[Gravel Democrat]

2. tekme ve tavsiye

[mdmc]

3. ..