Help for Helmand
Daniel Korski 12:05pm
With 2011 promising to be another difficult year in Afghanistan, my friend
Alex Strick van Linschoten – a noted scholar of the region – has decided to do something to help. He is organising to get some charcoal to refugee families from
Helmand, who have fled the fighting between NATO and the Taliban and now live at a makeshift refugee camp just outside Kabul City. Like millions of refugees, the people at the camp have seen things
they will rarely forget:
To help these people – the victims of the conflict between Western forces and the Taliban – Alex is trying to raise a little money so the refugees will not freeze in the depths of winter. Take a look at his website and consider donating a small amount."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."
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DZ
December 31st, 2010 1:01pm Report this commentThis is really heart-wringing: lyrical descriptions of people blown to pieces, just as my uncle was. Only in his case, they didn't find many bits afterwards. And I used to sit in an underground hole whilst Liverpool burned, listening to unsynchronised propellors overhead, not very conscious of the fact that an Anderson shelter didn't give a lot of protection from a close one.
So I feel entitled to ignore the pathos in this puff and say: GET OUT OF AFGHANISTAN, we don't belong there. Our superb and valiant troops are being killed and mutilated in a struggle that is not ours. Just leave. Tomorrow.
MaxSceptic
December 31st, 2010 5:57pm Report this commentAny 'donations' I care to deliver to that benighted land will come from 30,000 feet.
Baron
December 31st, 2010 6:50pm Report this commentgood on your friend, Daniel; it may not be enough, it certainly will not solve the problem, but we all should do what we can to help, avoiding any of the officially registered ‘charities’.
DZ
January 1st, 2011 1:55pm Report this commentLook back in sympathy, and hope that we can get out without the terrible losses suffered by the Russians.
http://englishrussia.com/index.php/2011/01/01/russian-afghanistan/#more-31342
AY
January 1st, 2011 11:28pm Report this comment"Just leave. Tomorrow"
This is professional army.
Soliers know about danger.
They are responsible adults.
They want to defeat the enemy, despite risks.
One can only be humbled by their courage.
It's not my or your business to deliver orders to them.
I only can wish them good luck, - ram the Taliban orks to dust, quickly and for good, and all come back as heroes and unscratched.
maddy1
January 4th, 2011 5:43am Report this commentThe problem is, as always, fighting these silly asymetrical wars, The fifties in Korea taught us nothing, but we still have an open, unsettled account with North Korea.
This so called expert on Helland, what does this mean? Does the expert know the exact chemical compostion of the soil or the vegetation.
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