Geography & Destiny
Homeland Security
Mon, 08/02/2010 - 15:59 — grace.norman@gm...description:
<p>Another perspective on homeland security.</p>
Era:
Afghanistan Today
Theme:
Geography & Destiny
Identity & Perception
Year:
2008
BCE/CE:
CE
Date Period:
CE
More Information:
<p>Australian Government Department of Defence, and ISAF. "20100129adf8246638_049.JPG." Digital image. Isafmedia's Flickr Photostream. Accessed September 5, 2010. http://www.flickr.com/photos/isafmedia/4329296739/.<br />
Creative Commons license: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/deed.en</p>
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<div class="hang">Australian Government Department of Defense, and ISAF. "20100104adf8246638_131.JPG." Digital image. Isafmedia's Flickr Photostream. Accessed September 5, 2010. http://www.flickr.com/photos/isafmedia/4258452373/.
<div>Creative Commons license: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/deed.en</div>
<div> </div>
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<div class="hang">Fayloga, Sgt. Mark. "ANA, Marines Address Local Water Concerns during Operation New Dawn." Digital image. Isafmedia's Flickr Photostream. Accessed September 5, 2010. ANA, Marines address local water concerns during Operation New Dawn.</div>
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<div class="hang">German Air Force, Herbert Albring, and ISAF. "OMLT Training." Digital image. Isafmedia's Flickr Photostream. Accessed September 5, 2010. http://www.flickr.com/photos/isafmedia/4140701920/.
<div>Creative Commons license: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/deed.en</div>
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<div class="hang">Henry, Spc. William, and ISAF. "091130-A-2575T-032." Digital image. Isafmedia's Flickr Photostream. Accessed September 5, 2010. http://www.flickr.com/photos/isafmedia/4183433659/.</div>
<div class="hang"> </div>
<div class="hang">Hubert, US Army Spc. Christopher, U.S. Department of Defense, and ISAF. "091120-A-5864H-033." Digital image. Isafmedia's Flickr Photostream. Accessed September 5, 2010. http://www.flickr.com/photos/isafmedia/4148969349/.</div>
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<div class="hang">ISAF. "Untitled (Gen. Stanley McChrystal)." Digital image. Isafmedia's Flickr Photostream. Accessed September 5, 2010. http://www.flickr.com/photos/isafmedia/4151701671/.
<div>Creative Commons license: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/deed.en</div>
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<div class="hang">Lail, Staff Sgt. Bradley, and ISAF. "ANA NCO Graduation." Digital image. Isafmedia's Flickr Photostream. Accessed September 5, 2010. http://www.flickr.com/photos/isafmedia/4796794970/.</div>
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<div class="hang">Lopez, Tech. Sgt. Efren, U.S. Air Force, and U.S. Department of Defense. "American Helicopters." Digital image. U.S. Department of Defense. Accessed September 5, 2010. http://www.defense.gov/multimedia/.</div>
<div class="hang"> </div>
<div class="hang">Marino, Lance Cpl. Walter. "091204-M-3612M-014." Digital image. Isafmedia's Flickr Photostream. Accessed September 5, 2010. http://www.flickr.com/photos/isafmedia/4178463246/.</div>
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<div class="hang">Nicholas, U.S. Army Photo by Spc. Christopher, and U.S. Army. "Onlookers from the Rooftop." Digital image.</div>
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<div class="hang">Rafoss, U.S. Marine Corps Corporal John Scott. "090103-M-6058R-033." Digital image. Isafmedia's Flickr Photostream. Accessed September 5, 2010. http://www.flickr.com/photos/isafmedia/3166572484/.</div>
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<div class="hang">Rieger, Michael. "Photograph by Michael Rieger Taken on 09/25/2001 in New York." Digital image. FEMA Photo Library. Accessed September 5, 2010. http://www.photolibrary.fema.gov/photolibrary/photo_details.do?id=4184.</div>
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<div class="hang">Smith, U.S. Air Force Tech. Sgt Laura K., and ISAF. "090208-F-6426S-120." Digital image. Isafmedia's Flickr Photostream. Accessed September 5, 2010. http://www.flickr.com/photos/isafmedia/3276443396/.</div>
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<div class="hang">Wade, Sgt. Teddy, U.S. Army, and ISAF. "100102-A-6365W-160." Digital image. Isafmedia's Flickr Photostream. Accessed September 5, 2010. http://www.flickr.com/photos/isafmedia/4248779652.</div>
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<div class="hang">Waezi, Fardin. "Photo of the Day: 7 June 2010." Digital image. UNAMA's Flickr Photostream. Accessed September 5, 2010. http://www.flickr.com/photos/unama/4677413023/.</div>
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<div class="hang">Producer: Kate Harding</div>
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</div>
<p> </p>
Video Transcript:
<p>I think that our understanding of security in Afghanistan has been largely oriented toward our security.</p>
<p>We have seen Afghanistan as important in terms of maintaining American security. Ultimately I would argue if we are really concerned with the security of the United States of our geographical borders and of our people abroad, we have to be concerned with Afghan security. We have to be concerned with the integrity of their bodies and their spaces and their livelihoods.</p>
<p>Security for Afghans involves, it involves livelihoods, it involves being able to meet the daily needs of the people, so there’s an economic component of security.</p>
<p>There is a, as well as a component of security related to the physical spaces that they occupy. And one example of where our notion of security conflicts with their notion of security comes in situations where US troops decide that they need to search the domestic compound.</p>
<p>The domestic quarters of someone that they suspect might be with the Taliban or sympathetic to the Taliban or where arms might be hidden. And in pursuit of those arms or in pursuit of those people that they suspect they, the troops go into those homes, force entry into those homes and in doing so they violate the sanctity of that space.</p>
<p>For Afghans that’s a very important part of security. Even though no bodily injury might take place, even though no one is injured in any way or killed, for them the insult that is, that takes place as a result of that violation of the autonomy, the integrity, the independence of the domestic quarters, presents a problem and an insult that sometimes can only be rectified through violence. And I think we have not fully adequately appreciated how important that notion of autonomy and of the security, the sanctity of the home is for Afghans.</p>
<p>We have to make sure this is central now to the counter insurgency doctrine where we understand what the military calls force protection as something that involves a relationship between us and the civilian population.</p>
<p>That the only adequate force protection in the long run is going to come from our ability to interact and gain the cooperation of the local population, and the way that’s going to happen is because they come to believe that we are going to be there, that we are trustworthy, that we are reliable honest brokers, and that we are going to do everything in our power to respect their culture, their life ways, their norms and things like the sanctity of their domestic quarters.</p>
A Fragile Nation Divided
Mon, 08/02/2010 - 15:04 — grace.norman@gm...description:
<p>The civil war between the Northern Alliance and Taliban attracted international attention.</p>
Era:
Afghanistan Today
Theme:
Geography & Destiny
Year:
1996
BCE/CE:
CE
Date Period:
CE
More Information:
<p><i>0030</i>. AMRC Collection, Williams Afghan Media Project, Williams College, Williamstown, MA.</p>
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<div class="hang"><i>26-13</i>. AMRC Collection, Williams Afghan Media Project, Williams College, Williamstown, MA.</div>
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<div class="hang">Albright, Senior Airman Rylan, and ISAF. "Looking Out in Afghanistan." Digital image. Isafmedia's Flickr Photostream. Accessed September 5, 2010. http://www.flickr.com/photos/isafmedia/4737768883/.</div>
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<div class="hang">Arnesen, Marius. "Gunnar Trying a Burqa - Herat, Afghanistan." Digital image. Marius Arnesen's Flickr Photostream. Accessed September 5, 2010. http://www.flickr.com/photos/anarkistix/4112252824/in/faves-26185287@N04/.</div>
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<div class="hang">Batoor, Barat Ali. ""Kite Runner" in Kabul: 14 September 2009." Digital image. UNAMA's Flickr Photostream. Accessed September 5, 2010. http://www.flickr.com/photos/unama/3919091655/in/photostream/.</div>
<div class="hang"> </div>
<div class="hang">Bluuurgh. "Taliban-Torkham-2001." Digital image. Wikipedia Commons. Accessed September 5, 2010. http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Taliban-Torkham-2001.jpg.</div>
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<div class="hang">Collet, U.S. Army Spc. Jeff, and ISAF. "100308-A-9647C-113." Digital image. Isafmedia's Flickr Photostream. Accessed September 5, 2010. http://www.flickr.com/photos/isafmedia/4534100118/.</div>
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<div class="hang">DING, Dawei. "GB2767_18." Digital image. Daweiding's Flickr Photostream. Accessed September 5, 2010. http://www.flickr.com/photos/31100956@N06/4035703439/.
<div>Creative Commons license: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/deed.en</div>
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<div class="hang">Dupree, Nancy. <i>80-655</i>. Dupree Collection, Williams Afghan Media Project, Williams College, Williamstown, MA.</div>
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<div class="hang">Fekrat, Nasim. "Hazara Woman." Digital image. Afghan LORD's Flickr Photostream. Accessed September 5, 2010. http://www.flickr.com/photos/sohrab_kabuli/2814898600/.
<div>Creative Commons license: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/deed.en</div>
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<div class="hang">Geo Swan. "Taliban Fighters on a Pickup Truck." Digital image. Wikipedia Commons. Accessed September 5, 2010. http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Taliban_fighters_on_a_pickup_truck.jpg.</div>
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<div class="hang">Huffman, Todd. "The Road." Digital image. Todd Huffman's Flickr Photostream. Accessed September 5, 2010. http://www.flickr.com/photos/99287245@N00/3819504701/.
<div>Creative Commons license: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/deed.en</div>
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<div class="hang">Lambert, Olly. "Kabul Football Stadium." Digital image. Olly L's Flickr Photostream. Accessed September 5, 2010. http://www.flickr.com/photos/ollylambert/423940195/.
<div>Creative Commons license: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/deed.en</div>
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<div class="hang">Logari, Durai. "More Nare Kele." Radio-Television Afghanistan Archives. </div>
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<div class="hang">McNeeley, Mass Communication Specialist Chad J., and U.S. Department of Defense. "100330-N-0696M-108." Digital image. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff's Flickr Photostream. Accessed September 5, 2010. http://www.flickr.com/photos/thejointstaff/4476752207/.</div>
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<div class="hang">Millucci, Barbara. "Afghanistan - Red Cross -." Digital image. Barbara Millucci's Flickr Photostream. Accessed September 5, 2010. http://www.flickr.com/photos/12284999@N05/2168691015/.
<div>Creative Commons license: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/deed.en</div>
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<div class="hang">Montgomery, Carl. "Darulaman Palace, Kabul Afghanistan, a Little Rocket Weary." Digital image. Carl Montgomery's Flickr Photostream. Accessed September 5, 2010. http://www.flickr.com/photos/carlmontgomery/3068050936/.
<div>www.carlmontgomery.com/ ; Creative Commons license: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/deed.en</div>
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<div class="hang">"Phonograph Record Store." Digital image. Foreign Policy. Accessed September 5, 2010. http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2010/05/27/once_upon_a_time_in_afghanistan.</div>
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<div class="hang"><i>Q-00492-19</i>. AMRC Collection, Williams Afghan Media Project, Williams College, Williamstown, MA.</div>
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<div class="hang"><i>Stone Upon My Soul (Russian Propaganda Film Showing Soviet Withdrawal from Afghanistan)</i>. Restored by Gregory Whitmore. Williams Afghan Media Project, Previously Unpublished.</div>
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<div class="hang">Tabios, Petty Officer 1st Class Ryan, and ISAF. "090912-N-1175T-099." Digital image. Isafmedia's Flickr Photostream. Accessed September 5, 2010. http://www.flickr.com/photos/isafmedia/3960898469/.</div>
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<div class="hang">Unknown. "020114-N-8242C-005." Digital image. Defenseimagery.mil. Accessed September 5, 2010. http://tinyurl.com/2ehm5j7.</div>
<div class="hang">U.S. Navy, and ISAF. "Taliban Use Mosque to Hide Weapons Cache." Digital image. Isafmedia's Flickr Photostream. Accessed September 5, 2010. http://www.flickr.com/photos/isafmedia/4850775420/.</div>
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<div class="hang">Waezi, Fardin, and UNAMA. "Attack in Kabul: 18 January 2010." Digital image. UNAMA's Flickr Photostream. Accessed September 5, 2010. http://www.flickr.com/photos/unama/4284056235/in/photostream/.</div>
<hr />
<div class="hang">Producer: Grace Norman</div>
</div>
</div>
<p> </p>
Video Transcript:
<p>For people who know Kabul, it’s hard to reconcile what life is like today compared to 50 years ago.</p>
<p>When the Soviet Union withdrew its troops, it also withdrew its financial and infrastructural support to the Afghan government. The Afghan government—unable to provide for its people—quickly lost credibility. Various warlord-led militias grouped outside of Kabul, vying for power. It wasn’t clear whether the government was trying to hold things together, or if it was ripping itself apart by participating in factional fighting. In the power vaccuum that resulted, no one was left to protect the capitol city of Kabul.</p>
<p>Fierce gun fights and rampant missile strikes, spiraled downwards into abject rejection of wartime conventions. Hospitals were bombed, the Red Cross targeted, civilians killed. By the time the Taliban arrived in Kabul in 1996, their numbers far outranked most of the other factions. The Taliban chased the warlords out of Kabul. The people who were left in Kabul cheered the Taliban liberators and welcomed a return to relative peace. But cheering was replaced by despair all too soon.</p>
<p>The Taliban had a very particular and narrow interpretation of sharia, the Islamic law. Cultural artifacts were destroyed because they were anti-Islamic in the eyes of the Taliban. Music was silenced. Shiites and Hazaras were persecuted and many were slaughtered. All men were commanded wear beards and a head covering and live by a strict code of conduct. Women had to wear burqas and were not allowed to work or have an education. Seemingly innocent past times were punishable by public flogging, mutilation, or worse.</p>
<p>Life, as Afghanistan had known it, had changed radically. The people were persecuted by harsh laws and even harsher punishments.</p>
<p>Muslims around the world argued that the practices in Afghanistan were a desecration of the sharia. But in Afghanistan, there was no room for debate.</p>
<p>After the fall of Kabul, the Taliban went on to control an estimated 95% of Afghanistan by September 2001. Taliban rule, following a quarter century of fighting, had all but destroyed Afghanistan. The chaos that resulted harbored an international terrorist movement that would lead Afghanistan to war with a faraway, but very powerful nation.</p>
The Persistence of War
Mon, 08/02/2010 - 14:57 — grace.norman@gm...description:
<p>Imagine three decades of war by looking at wartime photographs taken by Afghans.</p>
Era:
Afghanistan Today
Theme:
Geography & Destiny
Tradition & Modernization
Year:
1995
BCE/CE:
CE
Date Period:
CE
More Information:
<p><i>0096</i>. AMRC Collection, Williams Afghan Media Project, Williams College, Williamstown, MA.</p>
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<div class="hang"><i>0122</i>. AMRC Collection, Williams Afghan Media Project, Williams College, Williamstown, MA.</div>
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<div class="hang"><i>0124</i>. AMRC Collection, Williams Afghan Media Project, Williams College, Williamstown, MA.</div>
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<div class="hang"><i>0126</i>. AMRC Collection, Williams Afghan Media Project, Williams College, Williamstown, MA.</div>
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<div class="hang"><i>0152</i>. AMRC Collection, Williams Afghan Media Project, Williams College, Williamstown, MA.</div>
<div class="hang"> </div>
<div class="hang"><i>0167</i>. AMRC Collection, Williams Afghan Media Project, Williams College, Williamstown, MA.</div>
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<div class="hang"><i>0191</i>. AMRC Collection, Williams Afghan Media Project, Williams College, Williamstown, MA.</div>
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<div class="hang"><i>0203</i>. AMRC Collection, Williams Afghan Media Project, Williams College, Williamstown, MA.</div>
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<div class="hang"><i>0206</i>. AMRC Collection, Williams Afghan Media Project, Williams College, Williamstown, MA.</div>
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<div class="hang"><i>0218</i>. AMRC Collection, Williams Afghan Media Project, Williams College, Williamstown, MA.</div>
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<div class="hang"><i>0222</i>. AMRC Collection, Williams Afghan Media Project, Williams College, Williamstown, MA.</div>
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<div class="hang"><i>10-16</i>. AMRC Collection, Williams Afghan Media Project, Williams College, Williamstown, MA.</div>
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<div class="hang"><i>1081-33</i>. AMRC Collection, Williams Afghan Media Project, Williams College, Williamstown, MA.</div>
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<div class="hang"><i>1170-17</i>. AMRC Collection, Williams Afghan Media Project, Williams College, Williamstown, MA.</div>
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<div class="hang"><i>1179-22A</i>. AMRC Collection, Williams Afghan Media Project, Williams College, Williamstown, MA.</div>
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<div class="hang"><i>118-34</i>. AMRC Collection, Williams Afghan Media Project, Williams College, Williamstown, MA.</div>
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<div class="hang"><i>161-9</i>. AMRC Collection, Williams Afghan Media Project, Williams College, Williamstown, MA.</div>
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<div class="hang"><i>456-28</i>. AMRC Collection, Williams Afghan Media Project, Williams College, Williamstown, MA.</div>
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<div class="hang"><i>804-23A</i>. AMRC Collection, Williams Afghan Media Project, Williams College, Williamstown, MA.</div>
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<div class="hang"><i>89-3A</i>. AMRC Collection, Williams Afghan Media Project, Williams College, Williamstown, MA.</div>
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<div class="hang"><i>G-00193-35</i>. AMRC Collection, Williams Afghan Media Project, Williams College, Williamstown, MA.</div>
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<div class="hang"><i>G-00194-22</i>. AMRC Collection, Williams Afghan Media Project, Williams College, Williamstown, MA.</div>
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<div class="hang"><i>H-00211-24</i>. AMRC Collection, Williams Afghan Media Project, Williams College, Williamstown, MA.</div>
<div class="hang"> </div>
<div class="hang">Mahwash. "Gar Konad Saheb-E-Man (If My Eyes Meet The Ones Of The Lord)." In <i>Radio Kaboul</i>. Accords Croisés, 2003, CD.</div>
<div class="hang"> </div>
<div class="hang"><i>Q-00497-08</i>. AMRC Collection, Williams Afghan Media Project, Williams College, Williamstown, MA.</div>
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<div class="hang"><i>Q-00504-03a</i>. AMRC Collection, Williams Afghan Media Project, Williams College, Williamstown, MA.</div>
<div class="hang"> </div>
<div class="hang"><i>Q2-01268-08</i>. AMRC Collection, Williams Afghan Media Project, Williams College, Williamstown, MA.</div>
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<div class="hang"><i>Q2-01276-24</i>. AMRC Collection, Williams Afghan Media Project, Williams College, Williamstown, MA.</div>
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<div class="hang"><i>Sl-03283</i>. AMRC Collection, Williams Afghan Media Project, Williams College, Williamstown, MA.</div>
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<div class="hang"><i>Sl-06139</i>. AMRC Collection, Williams Afghan Media Project, Williams College, Williamstown, MA.</div>
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<div class="hang"><i>Sl-06209</i>. AMRC Collection, Williams Afghan Media Project, Williams College, Williamstown, MA.</div>
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<div class="hang"><i>V2-01412-30</i>. AMRC Collection, Williams Afghan Media Project, Williams College, Williamstown, MA.</div>
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<div class="hang"><i>V2-01417-10</i>. AMRC Collection, Williams Afghan Media Project, Williams College, Williamstown, MA.</div>
<hr />
<div class="hang">Producer: Grace Norman</div>
</div>
</div>
<p> </p>
Video Transcript:
<p>It’s hard for Americans to appreciate the impact of 30 years of war.</p>
<p>Imagine the number of casualties, the number of refugees, the amount of weapons that have flooded into this country, the breakdown of the central government, the anarchy that’s existed in many parts of the countryside.</p>
<p>Afghanistan is a war more than any other reason because people have interfered with Afghanistan.</p>
<p>Afghans have to take responsibility as well, but when you look at who the key players are, who the key people responsible for the war in Afghanistan, they are people who prior to 1978 were unimportant people. The way that they became important people was because they gained the sponsorship of one or another foreign interest groups. So without that support, then they’d never materialize. They’d never become the people that they became. They’d never become important political actors.</p>
<p>If left to their own devices Afghans would have indigenous Afghan leaders who would emerge out of indigenous Afghan institutions and processes.</p>
<p>But because of the interference of outside actors, people like Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, or Mullah Mohammad Omar or Osama bin Laden who is one of those outside actors, those are the people who have created the problems in Afghanistan.</p>
<p>When you don’t have a central government, when the central government is broken down or as it was during the Soviet period confined to cities and bases, then those people become more and more important in the country. And nowadays the means of destruction are not in the hands of armies; they are in the hands of independent actors.</p>
<p>When I first went to Afghanistan in 1982, by and large the only weapons you saw were old army surplus Lee-Enfield rifles. And within a year, this is about 1982, 1983, within a year there was a flood of AK-47 Kalashnikov machine guns that flooded into Pashawar, Pakistan and ultimately over the border into Afghanistan. And of course by any price of those AK-47s on the market went plummeting.</p>
<p>They became widely available, along with rocket propelled grenade launchers and other kinds of instruments that a small group of people could harness. So it didn’t take, maybe back in the days of Abdul Rachman, you had to have horses and you had to have sabers and only major political figures, warlords if you want to use that term or dynastic contenders, only those people could really put troops in the field.</p>
<p>But now starting in the late ‘70s, you could have small groups of people who could devastate a whole area, who could gain control of a whole area.After the Soviets withdrew this became particularly true.</p>
<p>When I visited Afghanistan in 1995 I was with a former Mujahedin commander for the Hesbius Lamie party and he had a Toyota Hilux pickup truck, and he had five guys in the back of the pickup truck with Kalashnikovs, and with those five guys and his pickup truck he could control an area probably of 20 kilometers.</p>
<p>Assuming that there weren’t other commanders with their Toyota pickup trucks and their five guys with Kalashnikovs in the back.</p>
<p>So violence, the means of violence became distributed, they became disseminated, diffuse throughout the social fabric. And where did those guys come from? Where did that Toyota pickup truck come from, where did those AK-47s come from? They came from abroad. They came from somebody else who wanted to influence events in Afghanistan.</p>
Rise of the Taliban
Mon, 08/02/2010 - 14:33 — grace.norman@gm...description:
<p>The Taliban became notorious for their authoritarian rule, harboring terrorists, and insurgency against the American-led coalition. But in the beginning, they were considered a force for good.</p>
Era:
Afghanistan Today
Theme:
Geography & Destiny
Identity & Perception
Tradition & Modernization
Year:
1990
BCE/CE:
CE
Date Period:
CE
More Information:
<p><i>151</i>. AMRC Collection, Williams Afghan Media Project, Williams College, Williamstown, MA.</p>
<div id="export-html">
<div class="chicagob">
<div class="hang"><i>88-221</i>. Dupree Collection, Williams Afghan Media Project, Williams College, Williamstown, MA.</div>
<div class="hang"> </div>
<div class="hang">Bluuurgh. "Taliban in Herat." Digital image. Wikipedia Commons. Accessed September 5, 2010. http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Taliban-herat-2001_retouched.jpg.</div>
<div class="hang"> </div>
<div class="hang">Dupree, Nancy. <i>0030</i>. Dupree Collection, Williams Afghan Media Project, Williams College, Williamstown, MA.</div>
<div class="hang"> </div>
<div class="hang">Dupree, Nancy. <i>1102-27</i>. Dupree Collection, Williams Afghan Media Project, Williams College, Williamstown, MA.</div>
<div class="hang"> </div>
<div class="hang">Dupree, Nancy. <i>80-554</i>. Dupree Collection, Williams Afghan Media Project, Williams College, Williamstown, MA.</div>
<div class="hang"> </div>
<div class="hang">Dupree, Nancy. <i>84-376</i>. Dupree Collection, Williams Afghan Media Project, Williams College, Williamstown, MA.</div>
<div class="hang"> </div>
<div class="hang">Dupree, Nancy. <i>88-73</i>. Dupree Collection, Williams Afghan Media Project, Williams College, Williamstown, MA.</div>
<div class="hang"> </div>
<div class="hang">Dupree, Nancy. <i>A Sign for a Mosque and Madrassah by Saudis</i>. 1988. Dupree Collection, Williams Afghan Media Project, Williams College, Williamstown, MA.</div>
<div class="hang"> </div>
<div class="hang">Dupree, Nancy. <i>R7-5</i>. Dupree Collection, Williams Afghan Media Project, Williams College, Williamstown, MA.</div>
<div class="hang"> </div>
<div class="hang"><i>K-00305-27</i>. AMRC Collection, Williams Afghan Media Project, Williams College, Williamstown, MA.</div>
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<div class="hang"><i>K-00315-19a</i>. AMRC Collection, Williams Afghan Media Project, Williams College, Williamstown, MA.</div>
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<div class="hang"><i>L-00335-21</i>. AMRC Collection, Williams Afghan Media Project, Williams College, Williamstown, MA.</div>
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<div class="hang"><i>L-c-00351-04</i>. AMRC Collection, Williams Afghan Media Project, Williams College, Williamstown, MA.</div>
<div class="hang"> </div>
<div class="hang">Logari, Durai. "More Nare Kele." Radio-Television Afghanistan Archive. </div>
<div class="hang"> </div>
<div class="hang">UNAMA, and Eric Kanalstein. "Photo of the Day: 4 January 2010." Digital image. UNAMA's Flickr Photostream. Accessed September 5, 2010. http://www.flickr.com/photos/unama/4243349911/.</div>
<div class="hang"> </div>
<div class="hang">UNAMA, and Fardin Waezi. "Attack in Kabul: 18 January 2010." Digital image. UNAMA's Flickr Photostream. Accessed September 5, 2010. http://www.flickr.com/photos/unama/4284846506/in/photostream/.</div>
<div class="hang"> </div>
<div class="hang">UNAMA, and Fardin Waezi. "Attack in Kabul: 18 January 2010." Digital image. UNAMA's Flickr Photostream. Accessed September 5, 2010. http://www.flickr.com/photos/unama/4284846506/in/photostream/.</div>
<hr />
<div class="hang">Producer: Alexis Menten</div>
</div>
</div>
<p> </p>
Video Transcript:
<p>The Taliban have become infamous across the world for their authoritarian rule over Afghanistan in the 1990’s, for harboring Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda, and for their ongoing insurgency against the American-led coalition. But when they originally took power in Afghanistan, they were seen as a force for good.</p>
<p>When the Marxists took power in 1978, a large percentage of the population, 3 ½ million people over the next five years, fled into Pakistan; and an estimated million people fled to Iran. At the time, that was probably close to 20, 25% of the Afghan population became refugees.</p>
<p>There were reportedly originally more than 100 Afghan political parties in existence in Peshawar, Pakistan across the political spectrum—nationalistic, regional, tribal, socialist, conservative. But the Pakistan government decided that they were only going to recognize seven official political parties. All seven of those parties were Islamic. So it was really the decision of the Pakistan government that indicated or that determined that it was only going to be Islamic parties that became legitimate representatives of the Afghan people.</p>
<p>During this period of time, the Saudis and other outside groups had funded religious schools. And so there were a large number of religious madrasas that had sprung up to deal with the younger generation of refugee males.</p>
<p>I think that’s significant because a lot of those people, while they were Afghan they spoke Afghan languages, they were nominally Afghan in terms of their culture, many of them had never actually been in Afghanistan. They had never been, many of these young men had never grown up in villages, they’d never been around their aunts and their sisters and the normal range of females of different ages and different relationships to themselves that somebody growing up in a village would have. A lot of them had been in boarding schools and religious schools only among other boys for most of their lives.</p>
<p>After the Soviets withdrew in 1989, Afghanistan entered into a period of chaos.</p>
<p>What followed from 1989 until 1992 was a period in which the Islamic political parties that had first taken root in Peshawar in Pakistan started fighting amongst themselves. And all through that period up until 1995 they were fighting amongst themselves, and because they were no longer receiving funding from abroad, and at least not in the same amounts as they had been, they also started preying on the Afghan people. Started looking for revenues by taking the resources from the people themselves.</p>
<p>The Taliban initially came to end this chaos and to eliminate these warlords and commanders who were taking advantage of the Afghan people. It was only later when the Taliban came to power that they became more rigid, more autocratic, more authoritarian in the rule, and particularly in Kabul, which was a more liberal city, a more modern city, through this whole period of the Soviet occupation, particularly women had been educated and had roles in ministries and other occupations.</p>
<p>They really clamped down on the role of women in social life. And it was then that the Taliban got their reputation as being backward and particularly despicable in relation to their treatment of women.</p>
<p>But initially it’s important to recall that they were considered by Afghans a force of good, of reclaiming morality in the country.</p>
Soviets Withdrawal: Void After Victory
Mon, 08/02/2010 - 14:18 — grace.norman@gm...description:
<p>The Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan in 1979. Ten years later, they withdrew defeated. But what resulted was not the peace that everyone had hoped for.</p>
Era:
Afghanistan Today
Theme:
Geography & Destiny
Tradition & Modernization
Year:
1989
BCE/CE:
CE
Date Period:
CE
More Information:
<p>Dupree, Nancy. <i>80-655-4</i>. Dupree Collection, Williams Afghan Media Project, Williams College, Williamstown, MA.</p>
<div id="export-html">
<div class="chicagob">
<div class="hang"><i>H-00214-30</i>. AMRC Collection, Williams Afghan Media Project, Williams College, Williamstown, MA.</div>
<div class="hang"> </div>
<div class="hang">Kingruedi. "Evstafiev-afghan-apc-passes-russian." Digital image. Wikipedia Commons. Accessed September 5, 2010. http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Evstafiev-afghan-apc-passes-russian.jpg.
<div>Creative Commons license: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5/deed.en</div>
<div> </div>
</div>
<div class="hang"><i>Q-00481-27</i>. AMRC Collection, Williams Afghan Media Project, Williams College, Williamstown, MA.</div>
<div class="hang"> </div>
<div class="hang"><i>Q2-01283-33</i>. AMRC Collection, Williams Afghan Media Project, Williams College, Williamstown, MA.</div>
<div class="hang"> </div>
<div class="hang"><i>Q2-01290-06</i>. AMRC Collection, Williams Afghan Media Project, Williams College, Williamstown, MA.</div>
<div class="hang"> </div>
<div class="hang"><i>Sl-06216</i>. AMRC Collection, Williams Afghan Media Project, Williams College, Williamstown, MA.</div>
<div class="hang"> </div>
<div class="hang"><i>Stone Upon My Soul (Russian Propaganda Film Showing Soviet Withdrawal from Afghanistan)</i>. Salvaged and cleaned up by Gregory Whitmore. Williams Afghan Media Project, previously unpublished. </div>
<hr />
<div class="hang">Producer: Alexis Menten</div>
</div>
</div>
<p> </p>
Video Transcript:
<p>The Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan in 1979. Ten years later, in 1989, they withdrew defeated. How did it come to this?</p>
<p>After the Soviet invasion, there was prolonged fighting throughout the 1980s. The Soviet-Afghan War was really a kind of stalemate—neither side could defeat the other.</p>
<p>Eventually, a variety of factors ended the stalemate. One important one was the decision of the American government to provide stinger shoulder-launched surface-to-air missiles that neutralized the one big advantage that the Soviets had, which was their helicopters. And when they were neutralized, the Mujahiedeen began to take control of the countryside and really to push the Soviets into their bases and into the cities.</p>
<p>Ultimately another advantage that the Mujahideen had was that they were going to stay longer than the Soviets were. And this coincided with a period where the Soviet Union was suffering severe economic consequences of their own internal problems, the war was unpopular and ultimately within a year after their departure from Afghanistan the Soviet Union began to break apart.</p>
<p>The end result though was not the peace and prosperity that all had longed for. The freedom may have been won but it was won at a cost and what was left behind when the Soviets withdrew were a group of political parties, all of whom wanted power for themselves.</p>
<p>Translated lyrics of Russian song: </p>
<p class="rteindent1"><strong><span><em>In Afghanistan<br />
</em></span></strong><strong><span><em>in the black Tulip<br />
</em></span></strong><strong><span><em>with vodka in our glasses<br />
</em></span></strong><strong><span><em>we float silently over the earth<br />
</em></span></strong><strong><span><em>mournful bird, flies over the border<br />
</em></span></strong><strong><span><em>toward the Russian dawn</em></span></strong></p>
<p class="rteindent1"><strong><span><em>Carrying her boys home<br />
</em></span></strong><strong><span><em>soldiers return, to their beloved motherland<br />
</em></span></strong><strong><span><em>to lie in the earth<br />
</em></span></strong><strong><span><em>on a leave without end<br />
</em></span></strong><strong><span><em>torn to pieces<br />
</em></span></strong><strong><span><em>never to embrace<br />
</em></span></strong><strong><span><em>over the oasis of Jalabad.</em></span></strong></p>
<p class="rteindent1"><strong><span><em>Our tulip tilted on one wing<br />
</em></span></strong><strong><span><em>we cursed our job<br />
</em></span></strong><strong><span><em>again the boy has led his men to death<br />
</em></span></strong><strong><span><em>in Shindad, </em></span></strong><strong><span><em>Kandahar, and Begram.</em></span></strong></p>
<p class="rteindent1"> </p>
Perseverance of a People
Mon, 08/02/2010 - 14:12 — grace.norman@gm...description:
<p>During the Soviet War, millions of refugees began to flee Afghanistan. They went to Pakistan and Iran where they lived in massive settlements along the borders. During Taliban rule, their numbers increased. Millions remain displaced today.</p>
Theme:
Geography & Destiny
Identity & Perception
Traces & Narratives
Tradition & Modernization
Year:
1985
BCE/CE:
CE
Date Period:
CE
More Information:
<p><i>1139-22A</i>. AMRC Collection, Williams Afghan Media Project, Williams College, Williamstown, MA.</p>
<div id="export-html">
<div class="chicagob">
<div class="hang">"Dastgah-e Mahur: Tasnif "Mahd-e Honor"" In <i>Music of Iran I</i>. King Record, 1989, CD.</div>
<div class="hang"> </div>
<div class="hang">Dupree, Nancy. <i>82-3180</i>. Dupree Collection, Williams Afghan Media Project, Williams College, Williamstown, MA.</div>
<div class="hang"> </div>
<div class="hang">Dupree, Nancy. <i>85-34</i>. Dupree Collection, Williams Afghan Media Project, Williams College, Williamstown, MA.</div>
<div class="hang"> </div>
<div class="hang">Dupree, Nancy. <i>88-484</i>. Dupree Collection, Williams Afghan Media Project, Williams College, Williamstown, MA.</div>
<div class="hang"> </div>
<div class="hang"><i>H-00230-16</i>. AMRC Collection, Williams Afghan Media Project, Williams College, Williamstown, MA.</div>
<div class="hang"> </div>
<div class="hang"><i>H-00230-29</i>. AMRC Collection, Williams Afghan Media Project, Williams College, Williamstown, MA.</div>
<div class="hang"> </div>
<div class="hang"><i>H-00230-35</i>. AMRC Collection, Williams Afghan Media Project, Williams College, Williamstown, MA.</div>
<div class="hang"> </div>
<div class="hang"><i>H-00231-31</i>. AMRC Collection, Williams Afghan Media Project, Williams College, Williamstown, MA.</div>
<div class="hang"> </div>
<div class="hang"><i>H-00233-16</i>. AMRC Collection, Williams Afghan Media Project, Williams College, Williamstown, MA.</div>
<div class="hang"> </div>
<div class="hang">ISAF. "100109-F-3231D-132." Digital image. Isafmedia's Flickr Photostream. http://www.flickr.com/photos/isafmedia/4275299735/.
<div>Creative Commons license: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/deed.en</div>
<div> </div>
</div>
<div class="hang">ISAF. "100109-F-3231D-230." Digital image. Isafmedia's Flickr Photostream. Accessed September 4, 2010. http://www.flickr.com/photos/isafmedia/4275297941/.
<div>Creative Commons license: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/deed.en</div>
<div> </div>
</div>
<div class="hang">ISAF, and U.S. Navy Petty Officer 1st Class Monica R. Nelson. "081031-N-6651N-118." Digital image. Isafmedia's Flickr Photostream. Accessed September 4, 2010. http://www.flickr.com/photos/isafmedia/3040036131/in/set-72157609526139956/.</div>
<div class="hang"> </div>
<div class="hang">ISAF, and U.S. Navy Petty Officer 1st Class Monica R. Nelson. "081031-N-6651N-138." Digital image. Isafmedia's Flickr Photostream. Accessed September 4, 2010. http://www.flickr.com/photos/isafmedia/3040877890/.</div>
<div class="hang"> </div>
<div class="hang">ISAF, and U.S. Navy Petty Officer 1st Class Monica R. Nelson. "081031-N-6651N-153." Digital image. Isafmedia's Flickr Photostream. Accessed September 4, 2010. http://www.flickr.com/photos/isafmedia/3040880454/in/set-72157609526139956/.</div>
<div class="hang"> </div>
<div class="hang">ISAF, Tech. Sgt. Efren Lopez, and U.S. Air Force. "091103-F-9171L-074." Digital image. Isafmedia's Flickr Photostream. Accessed September 4, 2010. http://www.flickr.com/photos/isafmedia/4085601238/.</div>
<div class="hang"> </div>
<div class="hang">Kanalstein, Eric. "Http://www.flickr.com/photos/un_photo/4176333167/." Digital image. United Nations Photo's Flickr Photostream. Accessed September 4, 2010. http://www.flickr.com/photos/un_photo/4176333167/.
<div>Creative Commons license: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.0/deed.en.</div>
<div> </div>
</div>
<div class="hang"><i>L-00345-01</i>. AMRC Collection, Williams Afghan Media Project, Williams College, Williamstown, MA.</div>
<div class="hang"> </div>
<div class="hang">Morrison, U.S. Air Force Master Sgt. Jerry, U.S. Department of Defense, and ISAF. "08.12.2009.GATES.KARZAI.1." Digital image. Isafmedia's Flickr Photostream. Accessed September 5, 2010. http://www.flickr.com/photos/isafmedia/4170969805/.</div>
<div class="hang"> </div>
<div class="hang">Nelson, Navy Mass Communications Specialist Petty Officer 1st Class Monica R., and ISAF. "081031-N-6651N-183." Digital image. Isafmedia's Flickr Photostream. Accessed September 4, 2010. http://www.flickr.com/photos/isafmedia/3040047679/.</div>
<div class="hang"> </div>
<div class="hang">Nelson, U.S. Navy Petty Officer 1st Class Monica R. "081031-N-6651N-176." Digital image. Isafmedia's Flickr Photostream. Accessed September 4, 2010. http://www.flickr.com/photos/isafmedia/3040046369/in/set-72157609526139956/.</div>
<div class="hang"> </div>
<div class="hang">Nelson, U.S. Navy Petty Officer 1st Class Monica R., and ISAF. "081031-N-6651N-078." Digital image. Isafmedia's Flickr Photostream. Accessed September 4, 2010. http://www.flickr.com/photos/isafmedia/3040028919/in/photostream/.</div>
<div class="hang"> </div>
<div class="hang">Nelson, U.S. Navy Petty Officer 1st Class Monica R., and ISAF. "090418-N-6651N-001." Digital image. Isafmedia's Flickr Photostream. Accessed September 5, 2010. http://www.flickr.com/photos/isafmedia/3454878183/.</div>
<div class="hang"> </div>
<div class="hang"><i>News Broadcast</i>. Peshawar: Williams Afghan Media Project.</div>
<div class="hang">Purschwitz, Lance Cpl. James, and Navy Visual News Service. "091029-M-2581P-478." Digital image. Isafmedia's Flickr Photostream. Accessed September 4, 2010. http://www.flickr.com/photos/isafmedia/4081580955/.</div>
<div class="hang"> </div>
<div class="hang"><i>"Save Me From My Friends!"</i> In <i>Afghanistan Old Photos</i>. Accessed September 4, 2010. http://www.afghanistan-photos.com/.</div>
<div class="hang"> </div>
<div class="hang"><i>Sl-04717</i>. AMRC Collection, Williams Afghan Media Project, Williams College, Williamstown, MA.</div>
<div class="hang"> </div>
<div class="hang"><i>Sl-04719</i>. AMRC Collection, Williams Afghan Media Project, Williams College, Williamstown, MA.</div>
<div class="hang"> </div>
<div class="hang">USAID. "Afghan Refugees Returning from Pakistan in 2004." Digital image. Wikipedia Commons. Accessed September 4, 2010. http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Afghan_refugees_returning_from_Pakistan_in_2004.jpg.</div>
<div class="hang"> </div>
<div class="hang"><i>V2-01440-05</i>. AMRC Collection, Williams Afghan Media Project, Williams College, Williamstown, MA.</div>
<hr />
<div class="hang">Producer: Kate Harding</div>
</div>
</div>
<p> </p>
Video Transcript:
<p>During the Soviet War, millions of refugees began fleeing Afghanistan. They went to Pakistan and Iran, where they lived in massive settlements along the borders. During Taliban rule, their numbers increased.</p>
<p>When the Americans came, the refugees began returning to Afghanistan, along with a new generation of foreign-born offspring. Since 2002, an estimated 5 million people have returned to Afghanistan.</p>
<p>But still many of these returnees remain homeless and displaced in their own country. The influx of people has put new pressure on a system that is already stretched to its capacity. Millions remain displaced and are in desperate need of food, clean drinking water, and shelter.</p>
<p>In the 1980s, when the flow of displacement was just beginning, anthropologist David Edwards worked among Afghan refugees in Peshawar, Pakistan.</p>
<p>What was remarkable to me was just how adaptable Afghans were, that whole families picked up and took their essential belongings, which they could fit on a few horses or donkeys or camels, cross the border, and within a matter of a few weeks were—first, often they were given tents by the UNHCR—the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees.</p>
<p>Within a matter of a few weeks they were building walls around those tents, and houses with rooms, and after a while the tents were gone. The tents provided emergency shelter briefly, but for the most part they knew how to make their own houses out of mud, out of wood. And they were able to get food and other supplies and water. Imagine that in America. What would happen if 3 ½ million people were thrown on their own devices—they had to suddenly survive.</p>
<p>I think one of the misconceptions about Afghans that’s developed over the last few years is the idea that they are treacherous or deceitful, that they change sides, that you—one of the phrases you hear is you can’t buy an Afghan, you can only rent one.</p>
<p>All of those ideas, I think, misconceive the nature of Afghan culture and also of Afghan history. They are a small nation and they have been manipulated by great powers for generations.</p>
<p>The only way that they have been able to survive intact is by maintaining a flexibility and adaptiveness.</p>
<p>I think that if you look at the structure of the tribe, for example, it’s really all about adaptation. The tribe can expand when opportunities allow it to expand, and it can shrink and contract when opportunities disappear.</p>
<p>Afghans have shown an incredible adaptability over time, and environmental—the problems of when there are great droughts, when foreign conquerors overrun the country, the tribes somehow survive.</p>
<p>They’ve survived being refugees in Pakistan for 20 years; they’ve survived so many different kinds of problems that other forms of social organization would not have survived. So I think you have to understand the one important element about the Afghan survival and their ability to deal with the awful situation that they’ve found themselves in so often, is their ability to be flexible. And part of that flexibility is being careful about political allegiances; recognizing that people who are making promises today will probably not be around tomorrow, so that all those promises are contingent.</p>
<p>And I think one thing Afghans recognize is that history is contingent. It’s dependent upon variables that are outside their control. And to offer undying allegiance to an imperial power is madness, because imperial powers have shown over and over again that they are not gonna be around after awhile.</p>
<p>But for now, the question of Afghanistan’s displaced masses is one that is felt not just by Afghanistan but by many countries, as the world tries to decide which borders will be open to Afghans seeking a home.</p>
The Paradox of Development
Mon, 08/02/2010 - 13:19 — grace.norman@gm...description:
<p>Under President Truman, the U.S. began one of its most expensive development projects: the Helmand Dam in Afghanistan. It provided the needed infrastructure to build the local economy. Sixty years later, it also became a source of terrorism, environmental damage, and the proliferation of opium.</p>
Era:
Afghanistan in the World
Theme:
Geography & Destiny
Tradition & Modernization
Year:
1953
BCE/CE:
CE
Date Period:
CE
More Information:
<p>"100 Afghanis." Digital image. Wikipedia Commons. Accessed September 4, 2010. http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:100_Afghanis_%281963_-_top%29.jpg.</p>
<div id="export-html">
<div class="chicagob">
<div class="hang">Apodaca, Kenneth. "Beggar." Digital image. Vidi's Flickr Photstream. Accessed September 4, 2010. http://www.flickr.com/photos/kda73/2270253382/.
<div>Creative Commons license: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/deed.en</div>
<div> </div>
</div>
<div class="hang">"AtomicWar0201." Digital image. Wikipedia Commons. Accessed September 4, 2010. http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:AtomicWar0201.jpg.</div>
<div class="hang"> </div>
<div class="hang">Boone, Jon. "Taliban Stalls Key Hydroelectric Turbine Project in Afghanistan." The Guardian. December 13, 2009. Accessed September 04, 2010. http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/dec/13/afghanistan-turbine-taliban-british-army.</div>
<div class="hang"> </div>
<div class="hang">Cullather, Nick. "Damming Afghanistan: Modernization in a Buffer State." The History Cooperative. Accessed September 04, 2010. http://www.historycooperative.org/cgi-bin/justtop.cgi?act=justtop&url=http://www.historycooperative.org/journals/jah/89.2/cullather.html.</div>
<div class="hang"> </div>
<div class="hang">Dupree, Nancy. <i>49-58</i>. Dupree Collection, Williams Afghan Media Project, Williams College, Williamstown, MA.</div>
<div class="hang"> </div>
<div class="hang">Dupree, Nancy. <i>80-565</i>. Dupree Collection, Williams Afghan Media Project, Williams College, Williamstown, MA.</div>
<div class="hang"> </div>
<div class="hang">Dupree, Nancy. <i>84-16</i>. Dupree Collection, Williams Afghan Media Project, Williams College, Williamstown, MA.</div>
<div class="hang"> </div>
<div class="hang">Dupree, Nancy. <i>A69-562</i>. Dupree Collection, Williams Afghan Media Project, Williams College, Williamstown, MA.</div>
<div class="hang"> </div>
<div class="hang">Dupree, Nancy. <i>A69-565</i>. Dupree Collection, Williams Afghan Media Project, Williams College, Williamstown, MA.</div>
<div class="hang"> </div>
<div class="hang"><i>Inauguration of the Band-I-Ghazi Dam</i>. Khalilullah Enayat Seraj Collection, Williams Afghan Media Project, Williams College, Williamstown, MA.</div>
<div class="hang"> </div>
<div class="hang">ISAF, and U.S. Navy Petty Officer 1st Class Monica R. Nelson. "090415-N-6651N-003." Digital image. Isafmedia's Flickr Photostream. Accessed September 4, 2010. http://www.flickr.com/photos/isafmedia/3455510738/.</div>
<div class="hang"> </div>
<div class="hang">Kelly, Jim. "City Center." Digital image. Pthread's Flickr Photostream. Accessed September 4, 2010. http://www.flickr.com/photos/pthread/4061483812/.
<div>Creative Commons license: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/deed.en</div>
<div> </div>
</div>
<div class="hang">Qeran, Baba. <i>Naghne Danbora</i>. Radio-Television Afghanistan Archive.</div>
<div class="hang"> </div>
<div class="hang">"Save Me From My Friends!" Digital image. Afghanistan Old Photos. Accessed September 4, 2010. http://www.afghanistan-photos.com/.</div>
<div class="hang"> </div>
<div class="hang">"Shah & Harry Truman." Digital image. Wikipedia Commons. Accessed September 4, 2010. http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Shah_&_Harry_Truman.jpg.</div>
<div class="hang"> </div>
<div class="hang">United States Army. "AfghanistanHelmandKajakaiDamm." Digital image. Wikipedia Commons. Accessed September 4, 2010. http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:AfghanistanHelmandKajakaiDamm.jpg.</div>
<div class="hang"> </div>
<div class="hang">U.S. Air Force, and Tech Sgt. Efren Lopez. "091103-F-9171L-074." Digital image. Isafmedia's Flickr Photostream. Accessed September 4, 2010. http://www.flickr.com/photos/isafmedia/4085601238/.</div>
<div class="hang"> </div>
<div class="hang">U.S. Army, Sgt Russell Gilchrest, and ISAF. "100328-A-6225G-005 (Convoy of Trucks)." Digital image. Isafmedia's Flickr Photostream. Accessed September 4, 2010. http://www.flickr.com/photos/isafmedia/4492489523/.</div>
<div class="hang"> </div>
<div class="hang">U.S. Marine Corps, and Lance Cpl. Chad J. Pulliam. "Third Turbine, Kajaki Dam." Digital image. Defenseimagery.mil. Accessed September 4, 2010. www.defenseimagery.mil/imagery.html#a=search&s=turbine afghanistan&p=2&guid=8f11ec0c8da4edda3ebbd2376a30bab8ffaefa42.</div>
<div class="hang"> </div>
<div class="hang">U.S. Military. "Overview of Helmand River." Digital image. Wikipedia Commons. Accessed September 4, 2010. http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Overview_of_Helmand_River.jpg.</div>
<div class="hang"> </div>
<div class="hang">USAID Afghanistan. "Kajaki 2." Digital image. USAID Afghanistan's Flickr Photostream. Accessed September 4, 2010. http://www.flickr.com/photos/usaidafghanistan/4501645133/.</div>
<div class="hang"> </div>
<div class="hang">Varhegyi, TSGT Jim. "Rumsfeld October 2001." Digital image. Defenseimagery.mil. Accessed September 4, 2010. .</div>
<div class="hang"> </div>
<div class="hang">Waezi, Fardin, and UNAMA. "Environmental Pollution." Digital image. UNAMA's Flickr Photostream. Accessed January/February, 2010. www.flickr.com/photos/unama/4166191388/in/photostream/.</div>
</div>
</div>
<hr />
<p>Producer: Kate Harding</p>
Video Transcript:
<p>What is the relationship between intentions and consequences? Can we ever really know what our actions will bring? </p>
<p>In the 1950s, the United States built a dam in the Helmand Valley of Afghanistan. Sixty years later, the project has been a source of terrorism, environmental damage, and the proliferation of opium.</p>
<p>In the early 20th century, Afghanistan knew that it was politically essential to develop its infrastructure. Without doing so, the country risked economic and political isolation, not to mention an alienated public.</p>
<p>When he took power, King Zahir Shah set his sights on building modern infrastructure.</p>
<p>By the 1950s, the United States was in the midst of the Cold War with the Soviet Union. The two superpowers wanted to win the hearts and minds of people all over the globe in order to guarantee the interests of their own people.</p>
<p>Like the Great Game, the Cold War was fought on the soils of other nations.</p>
<p>The US began to court the region’s affections.</p>
<p>Afghanistan’s central location in Asia and its proximity to the Soviet Union made it ideal for American interests. King Zahir Shah was also eager to invite the Americans to develop his country.</p>
<p>In the 20th century the Cold War was played out through development projects, through modernization schemes, through dams, hydroelectric power, other ways in which the West, the U.S. in particular, and the Soviet Union tried to demonstrate their superiority and to gain the allegiance and affection of the Afghan people because of what they could do for them in terms of making their country more progressive, more modern, wealthier.</p>
<p>Under President Harry Truman, the US began one of the largest and most expensive development projects in history with the Kajaki (Kajak-eye) Dam project on the Helmand River.</p>
<p>The project continued well into the 70s when two additional turbines were added. But the project failed to bring the irrigation it had promised. Only a third of the promised land was irrigated and many crops soon failed because of changes in the environment. The project also disrupted the original water pathways between Afghanistan and Iran.</p>
<p>When the Soviets invaded Afghanistan in 1979, the project was abandoned entirely.</p>
<p>After the US toppled the Taliban in 2001, the Americans resumed work on the project in a continued effort to win the hearts of the Afghan people. But by now, the situation in Afghanistan had changed.</p>
<p>Opium had taken over the Helmand Valley, in part because the dam had changed the salinity of the soil, making it perfect for poppy cultivation. And Helmand had become a stronghold of the Taliban’s.</p>
<p>After a massive effort, NATO forces successfully brought a third turbine to the dam in 2008, but they have not been able to install it due to continued attacks from insurgents. The Taliban have set their sights on destroying the dam.</p>
<p>Today Afghantistan suffers a 70% unemployment rate, and that makes opium and violence all the more attractive to people. The country is in need of economic resources now more than ever.</p>
<p>It’s hard to know whether large development projects like Kajaki are really the way to go. The unintended consequences of foreign aid can sometimes spiral out of control. Moreover, it may be that development projects run the risk of alienating people from their own sense of worth and sovereignty.</p>
<p>Well, I think the Afghans have always been aware of themselves as a great people in a small nation. And they resent the idea that they can be used as pawns in other great power schemes and great power conflicts And it’s always been a running theme in Afghan history that the Afghan sense of nobility, the Afghan sense of their own substantial aspect, their substantial quality as a people, has always run into conflict with their relative lack of strength, their dependence on other nations, in particular the way in which the Afghan state has always been dependent on revenues from Great Britain and now the United States, has collided with that sense of their own autonomy and independence.</p>
<p>But there is hope for economic growth in Afghanistan. And that hope is related in part to infrastructure.</p>
<p>One of the more interesting developments is that Iran allowed India to build a road connecting one of their Persian Gulf ports to the Afghan border. Now really for the first time in history you can send goods by sea to Afghanistan via Iran as opposed to Pakistan and Karachi. So the first time Afghanistan actually has alternatives to Pakistan and Karachi to transit its goods to the sea. So we’re seeing Afghanistan in an economic position where its traditional isolation needs to be rethought because given the proper economic development and security situations it could once again become a fairly wealthy country with more than enough resources to support its own people if some are or all of these projects were put into action.</p>
<p>New wealth has begun to produce an affluent class in Kabul. But, as in many places, that affluence has driven up the cost of living without in fact spreading wealth to other pockets of the country.</p>
<p>The question that few seem to be asking is whether development is really the holy grail that everyone seeks.</p>
<p>In a country with many different lifestyles all intersecting at once, it’s hard to know what development should really look like.</p>
<p>The best of intentions can go wrong, to be sure, but they can also go right. And it will be up to the new generations to decide how to transcend the paradox of development.</p>
The War of Independence
Mon, 08/02/2010 - 12:09 — grace.norman@gm...description:
<p>For Afghans, it was a war of independence even though they were never formally colonized.</p>
Era:
Afghanistan in the World
Theme:
Geography & Destiny
Identity & Perception
Year:
1919
BCE/CE:
CE
Date Period:
CE
More Information:
<p>Burke, John. <i>Group. The Amir Yakub Khan, General Daod Shah, Habeebula Moustafi, with Major Cavagnari C.S.I. & Mr Jenkyns [Gandamak].</i> 1879. British Library, London.</p>
<div id="export-html">
<div class="chicagob">
<div class="hang"><i>KES-632-A-1</i>. Khalilullah Enayat Seraj Collection, Williams Afghan Media Project, Williams College, Williamstown, MA.</div>
<div class="hang"> </div>
<div class="hang"><i>KES-632-A-1</i>. Khalilullah Enayat Seraj Collection, Williams Afghan Media Project, Williams College, Williamstown, MA.</div>
<div class="hang"> </div>
<div class="hang"><i>KES-802-1-A-171-1</i>. Khalilullah Enayat Seraj Collection, Williams Afghan Media Project, Williams College, Williamstown, MA.</div>
<div class="hang"> </div>
<div class="hang"><i>KES-804-11-173-11</i>. Khalilullah Enayat Seraj Collection, Williams Afghan Media Project, Williams College, Williamstown, MA.</div>
<div class="hang"> </div>
<div class="hang"><i>KES-804-12-A-173-12</i>. Khalilullah Enayat Seraj Collection, Williams Afghan Media Project, Williams College, Williamstown, MA.</div>
<div class="hang"> </div>
<div class="hang"><i>KES-804-13-173-13</i>. Khalilullah Enayat Seraj Collection, Williams Afghan Media Project, Williams College, Williamstown, MA.</div>
<div class="hang"> </div>
<div class="hang"><i>KES-804-14-173-14_1</i>. Khalilullah Enayat Seraj Collection, Williams Afghan Media Project, Williams College, Williamstown, MA.</div>
<div class="hang"> </div>
<div class="hang"><i>KES-804-15-173-15</i>. Khalilullah Enayat Seraj Collection, Williams Afghan Media Project, Williams College, Williamstown, MA.</div>
<div class="hang"> </div>
<div class="hang"><i>KES-804-5-173-5</i>. Khalilullah Enayat Seraj Collection, Williams Afghan Media Project, Williams College, Williamstown, MA.</div>
<div class="hang"> </div>
<div class="hang"><i>KES-804-6-173-6_1</i>. Khalilullah Enayat Seraj Collection, Williams Afghan Media Project, Williams College, Williamstown, MA.</div>
<div class="hang"> </div>
<div class="hang"><i>KES-804-A-173</i>. Khalilullah Enayat Seraj Collection, Williams Afghan Media Project, Williams College, Williamstown, MA.</div>
<div class="hang"> </div>
<div class="hang"><i>KES-956-A-325</i>. Khalilullah Enayat Seraj Collection, Williams Afghan Media Project, Williams College, Williamstown, MA.</div>
<hr />
<div class="hang">Producer: Alexis Menten and Kate Harding</div>
</div>
</div>
Video Transcript:
<p>The Third Anglo Afghan War is called the War of Independence because from the point of view of Afghans, even though their country had not been formally colonized by the British, they still viewed themselves as under the thumb of the British.</p>
<p>In the treaty that ended the Second Anglo Afghan War, it was stipulated that the Afghans would allow Great Britain to have control over their foreign policy. For them it was a question of demonstrating their own independence, their own autonomy, and their status as a full partner in the community of nations.</p>
<p>In 1919, what’s now usually referred to as the Third Anglo-Afghan War was instigated by the man who was about to become the King of Afghanistan, Amanullah, who at that point was one of the contenders to the throne after the assassination of his father, King Habibullah.</p>
<p>For a long time, Amanullah had been urging the Afghan government to oppose the British. They said the British had too much power over their foreign affairs, too much influence within Afghanistan, and also they resented the fact that the British controlled some of the Pashtun tribes along the border after the imposition of the Durand Line.</p>
<p>[King] Amanullah, in his efforts to consolidate his authority, declared Jihad, declared a holy struggle, a holy war, against the British. And using the idiom of Jihad, using Islamic leaders, he was able to mobilize tribes along the border and other groups in Afghanistan, to rally against the British.</p>
<p>And so while the war didn’t last long, it was largely inconclusive because this was 1919, the British were exhausted from World War I, they didn’t have any interest in a prolonged struggle along the Afghan frontier, so both sides got out of it quickly.</p>
<p>It essentially accomplished what Amanullah wanted it to, which was to rally support for himself and the Jihad, and in the process, to push to the side other potential contenders for the throne of Kabul.</p>
<p>So for them, it was independence, even though the country had never been formally colonized.</p>
The First Anglo-Afghan War
Mon, 08/02/2010 - 10:44 — grace.norman@gm...description:
<p>Tensions ran high, militaries were assembled, and the first shot was fired. One side suffered a devastating and humbling defeat.</p>
Era:
Afghanistan in the World
Theme:
Geography & Destiny
Year:
1839
BCE/CE:
CE
Date Period:
CE
More Information:
<p>Atkinson, James. <i>Arghandi (Afghanistan). Guns Surrendered by Dost Muhammad Khan in Centre Secured by Major Cureton and His Lancers</i>. 1839. Courtesy of the British Library Board, London.</p>
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<div class="chicagob">
<div class="hang">Atkinson, James. <i>Surrender of Dost Mohommed Khan, to Sir William Hay Macnaghten Bart, at the Entrance into Caubul from Killa-Kazee</i>. 1842. Courtesy of the British Library Board, London.</div>
<div class="hang"> </div>
<div class="hang">Butler, Elizabeth. <i>The Remnants of an Army</i>. 1879. Tate Collection, London.</div>
<div class="hang"> </div>
<div class="hang">Eden, Emily. <i>Dost Mahomed Khan and Part of His Family: Mahomed Akram Khan, Hyder Khan, Abdool Ghunee Khan</i>. 1844. Courtesy of the British Library Board, London.</div>
<div class="hang"> </div>
<div class="hang">Qeran, Baba. <i>Naghne Danbora</i>. Radio-Television Afghanistan. </div>
<div class="hang"> </div>
<div class="hang">Rattray, Lieutenant James. <i>Afghaun Foot Soldiers in Their Winter Dress, with Entrance to the Valley of Urgundeh</i>. 1848. Courtesy of the British Library Board, London.</div>
<div class="hang"> </div>
<div class="hang">Rattray, Lieutenant James. <i>Bala Hissar and City of Caubul with the British Cantonments from the 'Ba Maroo' Hill (detail)</i>. 1848. Courtesy of the British Library Board, London.</div>
<div class="hang"> </div>
<div class="hang">Rattray, Lieutenant James. <i>Dost Mahommed, King of Caubul, and His Youngest Son</i>. 1848. Courtesy of the British Library Board, London.</div>
<div class="hang"> </div>
<div class="hang">Rattray, Lieutenant James. <i>Encampment of the Kandahar Army, under General Nott</i>. 1848. Courtesy of the British Library Board, London.</div>
<div class="hang"> </div>
<div class="hang">Rattray, Lieutenant James. <i>Interior of the City of Kandahar, from the House of Sirdar Meer Dil Khaun</i>. 1848. Courtesy of the British Library Board, London.</div>
<div class="hang"> </div>
<div class="hang">Rattray, Lieutenant James. <i>Interior of the Palace of Shauh Shujah Ool Moolk, Late King of Cabul</i>. 1848. Courtesy of the British Library Board, London.</div>
<div class="hang"> </div>
<div class="hang">Rattray, Lieutenant James. <i>Jugdelluk, the Last Stand Made by General Elphinstone's Army in the Calamitous Retreat</i>. 1848. Courtesy of the British Library Board, London.</div>
<div class="hang"> </div>
<div class="hang">Salter, William. <i>William Elphinstone</i>. 1836-39. National Portrait Gallery, London.</div>
<div class="hang"> </div>
<div class="hang">Vigne, Godfrey Thomas. <i>`Abdul Samud - Persian General in Dost Mohd.s. Service Kabul'</i> 1836. Victoria and Albert Museum, London.</div>
<div class="hang"> </div>
<div class="hang">Vigne, Godfrey Thomas. <i>Dost Md Khan Taken at Kabul</i>. 1835-38. Victoria and Albert Museum, London.</div>
<hr />
<div class="hang">Producer: Kate Harding</div>
</div>
</div>
<p> </p>
Video Transcript:
<p>In 1837, British presence in Afghanistan amounted to a handful of diplomats.</p>
<p>By 1841, British presence ballooned to 16,000 military personnel.</p>
<p>By 1842, only 1 British soldier survived.</p>
<p>By the 1830s, the Great Game between Tsarist Russia and Imperial Britain had begun. In Afghanistan, Dost Mohammed—the Emir of Kabul—was facing attacks by the Sikhs, and he was struggling to hold onto his power. In 1837, he sent a letter to the British in India and asked them to support him against their mutual enemy. Britain, eager to turn Afghanistan into a buffer against Russia, responded by saying that they’d protect him only if he cut off all relations with the Russians. But the British never put the agreement in writing, so Dost Mohammed, desperate to defend against a Sikh attack, turned to the Russians for help.</p>
<p>The British, furious, decided to cross the Khyber Pass with troops. They hoped to bring down Dost Mohammed in order to prop up their own man—Shuja Shah—the exiled leader who was eager to be reinstalled, even if it meant being nothing more than a puppet of the British.</p>
<p>When the British troops arrived, Dost Mohammed knew he would quickly be deposed. He fled into the hills while the British took Kabul with ease.</p>
<p>They propped up Shuja Shah and they continued to pacify locals with bribes.</p>
<p>The British assumed their mission had succeeded and they began to feel all too safe in Afghanistan. The commanders allowed their soldiers, many of whom were Indian, to invite their families and soon the British presence in Afghanistan numbered in the thousands.</p>
<p>But the calm would not last for long. In 1841, multiple British officers were assassinated by locals, and supplies were sacked. By winter, it was clear to the British that they were unwanted and that they should retreat before things got worse. They negotiated a safe passage to India for a party of 16,000 troops, personnel, and family members.</p>
<p>They began their retreat in January 1842, led by William Elphinstone. But Akbar Khan, the proud son of Dost Mohammed, had been hiding in the hills gathering a massive army of supporters and waiting for the day when he could avenge his father’s defeat.</p>
<p>His soldiers attacked the British party relentlessly.</p>
<p>Of the 16,000 people in Elphinstone’s party, only 40 survived. Only one of those men was British.</p>
<p>In January of 1842, the Afghans showed the world that they would be players rather than pawns in their country’s affairs.</p>
The Great Game: Who's Playing Whom?
Mon, 08/02/2010 - 10:12 — grace.norman@gm...description:
<p>Great Britain and Russia vied for control over Afghanistan and its strategic mountain passes. But it wasn't about military might; it was about winning the hearts and minds of a people. The question remains whether Afghanistan was a pawn—or a player.</p>
Era:
Afghanistan in the World
Theme:
Geography & Destiny
Identity & Perception
Year:
1838
BCE/CE:
CE
Date Period:
CE
More Information:
<p>Anonymous. "Russian Cavalry." Digital image. Wikipedia Commons. Accessed August 29, 2010. http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Russian_Cavalry_in_1827.png.</p>
<div id="export-html">
<div class="chicagob">
<div class="hang">Atkinson, James. <i>Arghandi (Afghanistan). Guns Surrendered by Dost Muhammad Khan in Centre Secured by Major Cureton and His Lancers</i>. 1839. Courtesy of the British Library Board, London.</div>
<div class="hang"> </div>
<div class="hang">Burke, John. <i>Group. The Amir Yakub Khan, General Daod Shah, Habeebula Moustafi, with Major Cavagnari C.S.I. & Mr Jenkyns [Gandamak].</i> 1879. Courtesy of the British Library Board, London.</div>
<div class="hang"> </div>
<div class="hang">Burke, John. "The 44th Hill Looking towards Jugdalluck, 1848." Digital image. The British Library. Accessed October 20, 2010.http://www.bl.uk/onlinegallery/onlineex/apac/photocoll/t/019pho000000487u00091000.html.</div>
<div class="hang"> </div>
<div class="hang">Chand, Dip. <i>Portrait of East India Company Official</i>. 1760-63. Victoria and Albert Museum, London.</div>
<div class="hang"> </div>
<div class="hang">Eden, Emily. <i>Dost Mahomed Khan and Part of His Family: Mahomed Akram Khan, Hyder Khan, Abdool Ghunee Khan</i>. 1844. Courtesy of the British Library Board, London.</div>
<div class="hang"> </div>
<div class="hang"><i>KES-1610-A-979</i>. Khalilullah Enayat Seraj Collection, Williams Afghan Media Project, Williams College, Williamstown, MA.</div>
<div class="hang"> </div>
<div class="hang">Myprivatecollection7. "1879 Afghan War Football Match Soldiers Khelat-I-Gilzai." Digital image. Myprivatecollection7's Flickr Photostream. Accessed August 29, 2010. http://www.flickr.com/photos/45866053@N02/4291175069/.</div>
<div class="hang"> </div>
<div class="hang"><i>Painting (the Signing of the Treaty of Bhairowal on 26 December 1846)</i>. 1846-47. © Trustees of the British Museum, London.</div>
<div class="hang"> </div>
<div class="hang">Rattray, Lieutenant James. <i>Dost Mahommed, King of Caubul, and His Youngest Son</i>. 1848. Courtesy of the British Library Board, London.</div>
<div class="hang"> </div>
<div class="hang">Rattray, Lieutenant James. <i>Encampment of the Kandahar Army, under General Nott</i>. 1848. Courtesy of the British Library Board, London.</div>
<div class="hang"> </div>
<div class="hang">Rattray, Lieutenant James. <i>Fortress of Alimusjid, and the Khybur Pass</i>. 1848. Courtesy of the British Library Board, London.</div>
<div class="hang"> </div>
<div class="hang">Rattray, Lieutenant James. <i>Jaunbauz, or Afghan Cavalry, with Horse, Bearing Implements for Smoking</i>. 1848. Courtesy of the British Library Board, London.</div>
<div class="hang"> </div>
<div class="hang">Rattray, Lieutenant James. <i>Temple of 'Ahmed Shauh', King of Afghanistan</i>. 1848. Courtesy of the British Library Board, London.</div>
<div class="hang"> </div>
<div class="hang">Unknown. <i>Painting (Sir John Dalling in Tanjore)</i>. 1785. © Trustees of the British Museum, London.</div>
<div class="hang"> </div>
<div class="hang">Ustad Awalmir. <i>Esta De Qasam Wi</i>. Radio-Television Afghanistan Archives.</div>
<div class="hang"> </div>
<div class="hang">"Victorious Ukrainian Cossack with a Head of a Tatarin." Digital image. Wikipedia Commons. Accessed August 29, 2010. http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:22._Kozak_z_golovoju_tatarina.jpg.</div>
<div class="hang"> </div>
<div class="hang"><i>Von Kaufman Portrait</i>. 1880. Navoi State Library, Tashkent, Uzbekistan. In <i>Wikipedia Commons</i>. Accessed August 29, 2010. http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Von_Kaufman_portrait.jpg.</div>
<hr />
<div class="hang">Producer: Kate Harding</div>
</div>
</div>
<p> </p>
Video Transcript:
<p>By the beginning of the 19th century, the British held enormous power in India. The British East India Company, which had started originally as a trading company, was now ruling several parts of India with its own military. The revenue from the company supplied massive wealth to the British economy, and at several times the company established trading monopolies that crippled other economies.</p>
<p>The company began pushing north into the Punjab and into Kashmir.</p>
<p>And at the same time, Russia pushed south into Central Asia, expanding its territory and its influence across the entire continent. Both empires began to realize that they would need to protect their borders — and their economies – from each other.</p>
<p>So the Russians wanted Russian goods to be sold in Central Asia and no British goods and similarly the British didn’t want to have any Russian goods.</p>
<p>Now, new tensions in the region were further hindering trade through Afghanistan, to the point where much of it was blocked all together.</p>
<p>Afghanistan had begun to disintegrate into unstable units after the death of Ahmad Shah Durrani. Both the British and the Russian empires realized that if they could win the support of local rulers, then they could ensure a favorable edge to their empire.</p>
<p>By 1837, the British demanded that the leader of Kabul – Dost Mohammed – cut off all ties with Russia in exchange for the British to protect him. But when the British refused to put the agreement in writing, Dost Mohammed quickly began negotiating with the Russians instead.</p>
<p>The British responded by declaring war and invading Afghanistan in 1838. That war, the First Anglo-Afghan War, would end disastrously for the British.</p>
<p>The Great Game had begun. And it wouldn’t just involve militaries. Like the Cold War of the 20th century, the Great Game would be about hearts and minds.</p>
<p>You had great imperial powers who were trying to improve or to create greater leverage, create greater influence over countries that were, to this point, independent in Asia – small countries like Afghanistan. But the way in which that competition between the imperial powers was played out was, as in the case of the Cold War, not done with standing armies, but rather through attempts at besting one another through gaining leverage in the courts of the independent kings and khans and feudal lords in central Asia.</p>
<p>Those attempts would continue well into the 20th century as Afghanistan became both a player and a pawn in the Great Game.</p>
