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Sunday, November 29, 2009

Making a difference in Afghanistan
Aldo Magazzeni from Perkiomenville.

Aldo Magazenni, whom I write about in my column today in the Currents section, has shown that one man, with a small amount of money, using local labor, can make a difference by bringing clean water to impoverished villagers in Afghanistan.

This photo shows him attending a ceremony in Herat, Afghanistan, for the completion of a water system in a poor slum there. In the background is Suraya Pakizad who runs shelters for abused women in Herat and a neighboring province.

You can learn more about Aldo and his water projects in Afghanistan and Kenya at www.travelingmercies.org. 
Posted by Trudy Rubin @ 2:38 PM  Permalink | 1 comment
Comments   
  • 0 like this / 0 don't   •   Posted 12:34 PM, 12/01/2009
    Every great power throughout history except the contemporary United States understood that not all enemies could or needed to be decisively defeated. Great powers pursued "victory" when it was feasible and necessary, but otherwise accepted the fact that many threats simply must be managed. America somehow concluded that it is exempt from this law of strategic feasibility--that it can attain decisive victory over all enemies near and far. While this was understandable in the emotional years immediately after September 11, now is the time for cold reassessment. The United States must admit that if decisive victory over violent extremism requires re-engineering whole cultures that do not want it, then it is unattainable. Americans must stop hoping for miracles and find realistic and affordable methods of protecting their interests.
    — DadGummit


1 comments
About Trudy Rubin
Trudy Rubin’s Worldview column runs on Thursdays and Sundays. In 2009-2011 she has made four lengthy trips to Afghanistan and Pakistan. Over the past seven years, she visited Iraq eleven times, and also wrote from Iran, Israel, the West Bank, Gaza, Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, Turkey, China, and South Korea. She is the author of Willful Blindness: the Bush Administration and Iraq, a book of her columns from 2002-2004. In 2001 she was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in commentary and in 2008 she was awarded the Edward Weintal prize for international reporting. In 2010 she won the Arthur Ross award for international commentary from the Academy of American Diplomacy.
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