"There is nothing to eat, no water, no electricty, no gas, no telephone, no hospital," said Nisar Khan, a resident, who had brought his family out on Sunday, when the army lifted a curfew a day after declaring the town under its full control.
Source: Haider, Zeeshan. "Pakistanis recount trauma of living in Swat combat zone." Thompson Reuters AlertNet, June 1, 2009: http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/ISL443506.htm
Thompson Reuters AlertNet. "Militants kidnap 300 students, others in Pakistan." June 1, 2009: http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/ISL458209.htm
Note: this piece was originally published June 1, 2009 and here has been republished with corrections September 27, 2009. The original URL and date order has been lost.
I don't know whether to have a day running with the media, which I find always illuminating but perhaps too easy now and much the province of anyone able to hang out on the World Wide Web.
However, this day has started with surveying for videos of the affected parts of the Islamic Small Wars, starting with a drive through Grozny, the center of a war poorly related in the press, perhaps--a thought that will always be buttressed by suspicious surrounding the murder of Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya--and then moving on to Mogadishu, Swat Valley, and Kabul.
The only relief I see as regards the civilian suffering that characterizes every one of these conflicts may come only from governments who sieze the initiative in producing services, reintegrating their displaced populations, and continuing vigorously to prosecute their war in both the field and across their information networks.
Being "out of power" in a state's sense of the phrase hasn't meaning in this warfare: those surviving "field operations" may simply revert to the same-old, same-old insurgent programs.
YouTube poster "militaryvideo." "Chechnya 2000 - Grozny city ride." September 16, 2008: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dez_oyWHAy8
Adow, Mohammed and Andrew Simmons, "Somalia: A Nation in Ruins - Inside Mogadishu." AlJazeeraEnglish, December 16, 2007: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KUbXrNozmlY (related article): http://english.aljazeera.net/news/africa/2007/12/2008525185238993693.html
In this next video from United Nations Television, Ahmedou Ould-Abdallah, Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Somalia, says plainly, "I was in Mogadishu this Monday . . . I must say it is very sad to see a capitol city I have known in eight years becoming a shanty town, and it is very sad to see how the city, her population and her country are taken hostage by those who have been fighting and destroying their country over 20 years."
YouTube poster "unitednations". "Mogadishu, "a shutty town" (Ahmedou Ould-Abdallah, Special Representative for Somalia)." May 29, 2009: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JwbPN-i894s
YouTube poster "AlJazeeraEnglish". "Taliban retain control in parts of Swat valley - 15 May 09." Iran Khan reporting, May 15, 2009: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h_4xlqGxA60
YouTube poster "AlJazeeraEnglish". "Pakistan battling to win control in Mingora - 16 May 09." Imran Khan reporting, May 15, 2009: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MKyEIhjo6CA
Recommended, albeit circa 1995: "Two Tales of Kabul - Afghanistan". YouTube poster "journeymanpictures", September 8, 2008: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=siiJMZBa-GU&feature=channel - add to it "Taliban - Afghanistan" put up by the same poster: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XyAerxHEWQo&feature=channel - With this one, I got a glimpse of, for me, a new kind of hero, Ahmed Rashid, one of the world's experts on the history and politics of the region and an engaging writer as well.
"Suicide bombings have never been a part of Afghanistan culture. Never. You never saw that in Afghanistan. It's only since 2001 that suicide bombings have come to Afghanistan" Context: more from "journeymanpictures" -- "Survivor's Tale - Afghanistan". Photographer Stephen Dupont, partnering with journalist Paul Raphael for Smithsonian Magazine, out on a run with a poppy eradication crew, becomes one of the victims of a suicide bomb possibly delivered by a 12-year-old paperboy. What's that like? Watch: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ahwm75R7Po&feature=channel
It was a little more than two years ago I started looking over newspapers in Somalia and Pakistan, more out of curiosity and good natured friendship than anything else, but that has made me a witness to conflict, but as much as one may say, what may one do?
Pass it along?
To whom?
Related Reference
International Contact Group on Somalia: http://reliefweb.int/rw/rwb.nsf/db900sid/YSAR-7JMQZM?OpenDocument
Rashid, Ahmed. Descent Into Chaos: The United States and the Failure of Nationl Building in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Central Asia. Viking, 2008.