The Big Lie of Afghanistan
By Malalai Joya
The GuardianUL: July 26, 2009
In 2005, I was the youngest person elected to the new Afghan parliament.
Women like me, running for office, were held up as an example of how the
war in Afghanistan had liberated women. But this democracy was a facade,
and the so-called liberation a big lie.
On behalf of the long-suffering people of my country, I offer my heartfelt
condolences to all in the UK who have lost their loved ones on the soil of
Afghanistan. We share the grief of the mothers, fathers, wives, sons and
daughters of the fallen. It is my view that these British casualties, like
the many thousands of Afghan civilian dead, are victims of the unjust
policies that the Nato countries have pursued under the leadership of the US
government.
Almost eight years after the Taliban regime was toppled, our hopes for a
truly democratic and independent Afghanistan have been betrayed by the
continued domination of fundamentalists and by a brutal occupation that
ultimately serves only American strategic interests in the region.
You must understand that the government headed by Hamid Karzai is full of
warlords and extremists who are brothers in creed of the Taliban. Many of
these men committed terrible crimes against the Afghan people during the
civil war of the 1990s.
For expressing my views I have been expelled from my seat in parliament, and
I have survived numerous assassination attempts. The fact that I was kicked
out of office while brutal warlords enjoyed immunity from prosecution for
their crimes should tell you all you need to know about the "democracy"
backed by Nato troops.
In the constitution it forbids those guilty of war crimes from running for
high office. Yet Karzai has named two notorious warlords, Fahim and Khalili,
as his running mates for the upcoming presidential election. Under the
shadow of warlordism, corruption and occupation, this vote will have no
legitimacy, and once again it seems the real choice will be made behind
closed doors in the White House. As we say in Afghanistan, "the same donkey
with a new saddle".
So far, Obama has pursued the same policy as Bush in Afghanistan. Sending
more troops and expanding the war into Pakistan will only add fuel to the
fire. Like many other Afghans, I risked my life during the dark years of
Taliban rule to teach at underground schools for girls. Today the situation
of women is as bad as ever. Victims of abuse and rape find no justice
because the judiciary is dominated by fundamentalists. A growing number of
women, seeing no way out of the suffering in their lives, have taken to
suicide by self-immolation.
This week, US vice-president Joe Biden asserted that "more loss of life [is]
inevitable" in Afghanistan, and that the ongoing occupation is in the
"national interests" of both the US and the UK.
I have a different message to the people of Britain. I don't believe it is
in your interests to see more young people sent off to war, and to have more
of your taxpayers' money going to fund an occupation that keeps a gang of
corrupt warlords and drug lords in power in Kabul.
What's more, I don't believe it is inevitable that this bloodshed continues
forever. Some say that if foreign troops leave Afghanistan will descend into
civil war. But what about the civil war and catastrophe of today? The longer
this occupation continues, the worse the civil war will be.
The Afghan people want peace, and history teaches that we always reject
occupation and foreign domination. We want a helping hand through
international solidarity, but we know that values like human rights must be
fought for and won by Afghans themselves.
I know there are millions of British people who want to see an end to this
conflict as soon as possible. Together we can raise our voice for peace and
justice.
***
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2009/07/25-0
Trillions to Banks as Taxpayers Left in the Dark
by Adrianne Appel
Inter Press Service: July 25, 2009
BOSTON - The U.S. Federal Reserve and U.S. Treasury have doled out
trillions in taxpayer dollars to banks and corporations and now the boom may
be falling on what lawmakers say is a shroud of secrecy that surrounds their
actions.
In separate hearings on Capitol Hill this week, lawmakers expressed support
for a bill to make the Fed's decisions more transparent, and for the
findings of a special inspector general report that calls for greater
transparency in the Treasury's bailout of banks, called the Troubled Asset
Relief Programme (TARP).
"Although Treasury has taken some steps towards improving transparency in
TARP programmes, it has repeatedly failed to adopt recommendations that [the
special inspector general] believes are essential to providing basic
transparency and fulfill Treasury's stated commitment to implement TARP with
the highest degree of accountability and transparency possible," says the
report of Special Inspector General Neil Barofsky.
"If Treasury doesn't put this information up on its website, this committee
will. And if Treasury doesn't turn over this information voluntarily,
Secretary [Timothy] Geithner will be brought before the committee to
explain," said Democrat Edolphus Towns of New York, chair of the House
Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.
In yet another sign of change to the institutions, President Barack Obama
has fielded a proposal to create a Consumer Financial Protection Agency,
which would rearrange and strip some powers now held by the Fed. The
proposal seems to have wide support among leading lawmakers.
"I don't see why there shouldn't be 100 percent, crystal clear transparency
of the actions taken at the Fed," said Republican Rep. Bill Posey of
Florida. "The public has a right to know."
Posey made his comments directly to Fed chairman Ben Bernanke as he
presented his semi-annual report on the economy to a House Committee
Tuesday.
Bernanke argued that actions taken by the Fed in the previous 12 months
helped prevent a wholesale collapse of the global financial system.
"The financial shocks that hit the global economy in September and October
were the worst since the 1930s, and they helped push the global economy into
the deepest recession since World War II," Bernanke said.
At the end of 2008, the Fed had 1.5 trillion dollars in short-term loans
outstanding to the nation's biggest banks and financial institutions,
compared to 600 billion dollars today, Bernanke said.
The attention of the Fed has worked and credit is flowing again among the
largest banks and corporations, and the nation's gross domestic product will
nudge up to two percent and maybe a near-normal three percent in 2010, he
said.
The rest of the economy is not fairing as well, he conceded. The Fed
predicts that unemployment will reach 10 percent by the end of 2009, and
foreclosures will continue to rise.
"Financial conditions remain stressed and many households and businesses are
finding credit difficult to obtain," Bernanke said. It is likely that the
nation will soon see many foreclosures in commercial real estate, he said.
The Fed expects to raise the interest rate it pays to banks with accounts
held by the Fed, when the economy improves. That interest rate is now at
0.25 percent.
This and other decisions, like the short-term loans it makes to banks
through its discount window, should continue to be made in secret, he said.
"We are taking all the steps necessary to protect taxpayer money. One
sensitive area is to have Congress second-guessing monetary policy,"
Bernanke said.
Bernanke was directing his comments at a bill supported by many lawmakers
that would require more auditing of the Fed's actions. It proposes
conducting audits of decisions made by the Fed, including setting interest
rates, six months after the decision is made.
The bill is sponsored by Republican Rep. Ron Paul, the Texan known for his
outspoken opposition to the deficit and his maverick run for president.
The Fed "doesn't want Congress to know what it is doing", Paul said.
Such an audit could welcome "political interference" in The Fed's decisions,
Bernanke warned.
"If we raise interest rates at a [Fed meeting] and someone in Congress
didn't like the decision and ordered an audit, isn't that interference?" he
said.
Elsewhere in Congress, the Treasury's actions were under scrutiny, as
Special Inspector General Barofsky detailed the shortcomings of that
institution's bank bailout programme.
Twelve separate programmes recently created at the Treasury have handed out
nearly three trillion dollars to banks, financial companies, auto companies
and insurers, Barofsky said.
The eventual, total price tag for all the government's bailout programmes
could reach 27.3 trillion dollars, if the economy continues to flag,
Barofsky said.
The Treasury has refused to audit the money loaned to the banks to see how
they are spending it. The Treasury has called such audits "meaningless",
Barofsky said.
So Barofsky's office went ahead and pursued the information.
The office surveyed 360 banks that received Treasury bailout funds and found
that almost all were using the money in ways other than to lend - which was
the intent of the programme. The banks used some of the funds to lend, but
also to purchase other banks, to pay off debts and to simply hold in reserve
should they need the funds in the future.
"TARP has become a programme in which taxpayers are not being told what most
of the TARP recipients are doing with their money, have still not been told
how much their substantial investments are worth, and will not be told the
full details of how their money is being invested," Barofsky said.
"The taxpayers now have a 700-billion-dollar spending programme that's being
run under the philosophy of "Don't ask, don't tell," Towns said.
Sociologist Saskia Sassen of Columbia University said from her London office
that it is important to step back and look at the big economic picture. The
bailout is not going to ease unemployment or foreclosures, she said.
"The fundamental problem with the bailout is that it is a financial solution
to a non- financial crisis. The bailout works for the financial sector.
Along with that relative success is growing unemployment among workers and
growing foreclosures that are forecast to reach 10-12 million over next four
years," she told IPS.
© 2009 Inter Press Service
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