By Kit-Bacon Gressitt

Many moons ago, I was the token feminist columnist for what was essentially a libertarian newspaper, and the boys were pretty accommodating. They let me serve on their editorial board, write their editorials, even edit their editorial page — sans title, of course, because I was, after all, a damn liberal. And a damn willful girl. Their fessing up to the job I was doing — despite its being only until they could find another nice boy who’d work for bad coffee and book review copies (Smoking, Drinking & Screwing was one of my favorite acquisitions) — wouldn’t have been good for the paper’s conservative image or for all the publisher’s boy-centric golf outings and cocktail hours in local sports team owners’ boxes.

Regardless, I had a hell of a good time: Some readers loved me, some hated me, some wanted me dead. Most interesting, though, of all the reactions I received was the rumor that wended its way to the newsroom one sizzling summer day as I was bemoaning a divorce — that I had left a “perfectly good little husband” to become a lesbian.

Not the stuff of front page news, but this tidbit did explain a lot at the time: the men who scurried away from my provocative path; the puffy-sleeved, calico-covered Bible-toting women who shrinkingly avoided eye contact, apparently for fear of exposure to the abject horror of pure female sexuality.

Nonetheless, I considered that homosexuality might become me, and I wrote about the rumor in a column, rolling this new persona around my mind’s tongue and relishing the unique flavors it might lend my life.

No longer would my social flirtations be perceived as platonic banter with the strong women who intrigued me. Instead, they would be known as the front they were for my lust for female flesh. I could graduate from the Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays contingent to join the Dykes on Bikes at the next Gay Pride Parade.

I wrote of the supposed need to pin a warning to my chest when visiting my daughter’s elementary school — Mind Your Children — because hearsay dictated my primary purpose in life would be to convert them all to the homosexual lifestyle, my own daughter, the first protégé on my list.

Of course those readers who had previously informed me of the vigils they held, praying to their loving God to forgive me the error of my liberal ways and redirect me to a heavenly path, would instead shun me for the abomination I surely had become in the eyes of that very same God. (Amazing how a little shift in orientation can affect the Almighty. Kind of fickle for a deity though, eh?)

Despite my pending condemnation to Hell’s fires for the sexually perverse, this new role did bear with it some unexpected pleasures, not the least of which was the power to cast fear in the hearts of entrenched conservative homophobes. I anticipated the delicious moment when I would lean in just a little too close to tell my tight-sphinctered Assemblymember that I thought I might like to put my lips on women’s lips, if you know what I mean. Thank you for that image, Sweet Baby Jeeeesus!

All told, I was pleased with the possibilities this intended slur brought me, although I refused to declare affiliation with any orientation. Still, I embraced the suggestion proudly and lovingly — along with all the guys and gals it included as targets of its assault. Because, as my mother taught me, it’s better to be looked over than overlooked — no matter if it’s with loathing. But even more interesting than the rumor itself was that the topic of my sexual orientation didn’t end there, oh no.

It’s human nature, I suppose. People hear what they want to hear, read what they want to read, and when the writer offers ambiguity — for the sake of a lesson, in hope of enlightenment emerging from confusion — many a reader is adamant in his or her certainty that a thing is, in fact, so or not so.

And, so, it turns out there were those who read my column and celebrated my coming out as though that made me more of a sister to them. There were those who demanded clarification of my ambiguity, praying for affirmation of the worst so they could put stamps on their appropriately outraged letters to the editor. And there were those who jumped right in and reviled me for revealing such a despicable, profane intimacy in a “family” newspaper, from which, by the way, I should be promptly fired — for being openly gay.

It was quite an array of interpretations, yet I was adamant that one’s sexual orientation didn’t matter, at least until foreplay reared its head. But lo those many moons ago, the message that reverberated back to me was that it still did: They asked, I refused to tell, and they were pissed. They wanted to know, straights and gays alike. It was a good lesson, for me at least.

Today, the reaction would likely be different; actually, I suspect the rumor would never get started. And that’s progress, albeit inadequate progress, because still we allow sexual orientation to define and divide us, and I wonder when we will live in a world in which parents of gays and lesbians do not have to group together for support or offer that support to young people whose own parents have rejected them. I wonder when we will live in a world where mothers and fathers are regarded for their ability to nurture, no matter their sexuality. A world where homosexuals approach the altar just as straight couples, still gnashing their teeth over seating charts and with legal marriage licenses in figurative hand. A world where politicians accept and salute the gays in our military — serving with honor, distinction and dedication — and acknowledge they have the right to do so honestly.

As for me, though, I’m still not telling — and I won’t until we’ve learned to stop asking. I’m willful like that.

©2010 Kit-Bacon Gressitt

Writers

Want to submit your work to Excuse Me, I’m Writing for the sheer joy of having an audience? Email your original fiction, creative nonfiction and poetry — 2,000 words maximum — in an MS Word document or in RTF to kb@kbgressitt.com. If we publish your work, you hold all rights, including bragging.

The Wisdom of Staff Officers

Recently resurrected by the local USMC humor circuit. … Not that Marines understand humor.

At this Command, we have written in large, black letters: DNR (Do Not Resuscitate) on the back of our security badges.     – MAJ (CENTCOM)

“Leaning forward” is really just the first phase of “falling on your ass.”     – MARINE COL (MARFOREUR)

I am so far down the food chain that I’ve got plankton bites on my butt.     – LTC (ARCENT)

None of us is as dumb as all of us.     – Excerpted from a brief (EUCOM)

We’re from the nuke shop, sir. We’re the crazy aunt in the closet that nobody likes to talk about.     – LTC (EUCOM)

Things are looking up for us here. In fact, Papua-New Guinea is thinking of offering two platoons: one of Infantry (headhunters) and one of engineers (hut builders). They want to eat any Iraqis they kill. We’ve got no issues with that, but State is being anal about it.      – LTC (JS) on OIF coalition building

The chance of success in these talks is the same as the number of R’s in “fat chance.”      – GS-15 (SHAPE)

His knowledge on that topic is only power point deep.     – MAJ (JS)

Ya’ll know, in this Command, if the world were supposed to end tomorrow, the sh** would still happen behind schedule.      – CWO4 (EUCOM)

We are condemned men who are chained and will row in place until we rot.     – LTC (CENTCOM)

Right now we’re pretty much the ham in a bad ham sandwich.     – GO/FO (EUCOM)

If we wait until the last minute to do it, it’ll only take a minute.     – MAJ (EUCOM)

The only reason that anything ever gets done is because there are pockets of competence in every command. The key is to find them … and then exploit the hell out of ‘em.     – CDR (CENTCOM)

I may be slow, but I do poor work.     – MAJ (USAREUR)

Cynicism is the smoke that rises from the ashes of burned out dreams.     – MAJ (CENTCOM)

We are the reason that Rumsfeld hates us.     – LTC (EUCOM)

Working with Hungary is like watching a bad comedy set on auto

repeat.     – LCDR (EUCOM)

I finally figured out that when a Turkish officer tells you, It’s no

problem, he means, for him.     – MAJ (EUCOM)

Never in the history of the US Armed Forces have so many done so much for so few.     – MAJ on the Free Iraqi Forces (FIF) Training Program

Our days are spent trying to get some poor, unsuspecting third world country to pony up to spending a year in a sweltering desert, full of pissed off Arabs who would rather shave the back of their legs with a cheese grater than submit to foreign occupation by a country for whom they have nothing but contempt.     – LTC (JS)

I guess the next thing they’ll ask for is 300 US citizens with Hungarian last names to send to Iraq.     – MAJ (JS) on Phase IV of Iraqi coalition building

Between us girls, would it help to clarify the issue if you knew that Hungary is land-locked?     – CDR to MAJ (EUCOM) on why a deployment from Hungary is likely to proceed by air vice sea

I’ll be right back. I have to go pound my nuts flat.     – LTC (EUCOM)

I guess this is the wrong power cord for the computer, huh?     – LTC USMC

(EUCOM) after the smoke cleared from plugging his 110V computer into a

220V outlet

OK, this is too stupid for words.     – LTC (JS)

When you get right up to the line that you’re not supposed to cross, the only person in front of you will be me!     – CDR (CENTCOM) on political correctness in the military

There’s nothing wrong with crossing that line a little bit, it’s jumping over it buck naked that will probably get you in trouble.     – LTC (EUCOM) responding to the above

Never pet a burning dog.     – LTC

Ah, the joys of Paris: a unique chance to swill warm wine and be mesmerized by the dank ambrosia of unkempt armpits.     – LCDR (NAVEUR)

We are now past the good idea cutoff point.     – MAJ (JS)

Nobody ever said you had to be smart to make 0-6.     – COL (EUCOM)

I seem to be rapidly approaching the apex of my mediocre career.     – MAJ (JS)

It’s not a lot of work unless you have to do it.     – LTC (EUCOM)

Creating smoking holes (with bombs) gives our lives meaning and enhances our manliness.     – LTC (EUCOM)

Once you accept that a dog is a dog, you can’t get upset when it barks.     – LTC (USSOCOM)

That guy just won’t take “yes” for an answer.     – MAJ (EUCOM)

Let’s just call Lessons Learned what they really are: institutionalized scab picking.     – LTGEN (9th AF)

I can describe what it feels like being a Staff Officer in two words: distilled pain.     – CDR (NAVEUR)

When all else fails, simply revel in the absurdity of it all.     – LCDR (CENTCOM)

Fallbrook marital relations

To: Sgt. Goodmarine
From: Steve Husband
CC: K-B Gressitt

Sgt Goodmarine,

I left my check for the Marine Corps Birthday Ball with the LtCol.

I would like a prime rib meal; and my wife would like a veg meal.

My wife’s name is K-B Gressitt — I know — the feminist thing.

Thanks for taking care of us. We’ll see you at the ball. SF, Steve

From: K-B Gressitt
To: Steve Husband

Ah, that commentary were unnecessary.

Love, K-B

At the Café des Artistes

Patron 1: I was in charge of six toilets at OCS, at Quantico (Marine Corps Officer Candidate School).
Patron 2: Busy toothbrush, huh?
Patron 1: Hey, I took care of them. I named them!

Read more Fallbrookisms…

By Kit-Bacon Gressitt

We’re tootling down the 15 Freeway to Coronado, my husband and I, and I’m subjecting him once again to public radio. It goes something like this:

A reporter announces that President Obama has declared the H1N1 influenza outbreak a national emergency, which should improve treatment and prevention of the flu.

Me: Finally!

He: Hmmm.

Me: I wrote about that months ago — caught flak for being a Biden.

He: Hmmm?

Me: For over-reacting. Apparently, the VP and I were fear mongering — in contrast to stating the obvious, which the president has now done.

He: Hmmm.

Then there’s a report on a Saudi female journalist who was sentenced to 60 lashes for her involvement in a Lebanese TV show, “Bold Red Line.” The show featured men discussing their sex lives, a taboo in Saudi Arabia. One of the men was sentenced to five years and 1,000 lashes; two others received two years and 300 lashes each.

Me: Saudi Arabia, now there’s a great ally for the United States, because we abhor cruel and unusual punishment — except when we don’t like the culprit.

He: Hmmm.

Me: Or when the culprit’s Muslim.

He: Hmmm.

Me: Or African-American.

He: Hmmm.

Me: This is nuts!

He: Hmmm!

We listen to a story about the search for Everett Ruess, a beloved 20-year-old poet wanderer who disappeared in 1934. Earlier this year, his remains were erroneously reported as having been discovered — based on inaccurate DNA testing.

Me: Bad DNA testing, jeez! That’ll show up on CSI.

He: Hmmm.

Me: And in plenty of appeals courts. Yet another hit on the taxpayers.

He: Hmmm.

As we approach our destination, we listen to one last story. It’s about the 350.org International Day of Climate Action events that are occurring around the world this weekend. They are intended to remind folks about climate change and the need to work together to decrease the amount of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere to 350 parts per million (ppm).

According to the story, though, public interest in climate change is shrinking a lot faster than the carbon dioxide ppm. A recent survey by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press found a “very sharp drop” since April 2008 in the percentage of Americans who believe there is “solid evidence the world is warming.”

Me: No evidence? What additional evidence does the public need? How many more polar bears have to starve to death for lack of habitat before they get it? How many more times do scientists have to report increasing temperatures and shrinking glaciers? Can’t they understand it doesn’t have to happen in their backyards to make it real?

He: Hmmm.

Me: Are you listening to me?

He: Turn right on Orange and left on First. Then show your ID at the sentry gate.

We’re there, and I see the telltale double take when the Navy sentries notice the “Don’t Be Gaycist” sticker on my windshield. Then we pull into a parking lot at Naval Air Station North Island, for the commissioning of the USS Makin Island LHD 8, the Navy’s newest amphibious assault ship.

A few thousand of us make our way to the shuttles or stumble over crane tracks, and find our color-coded seating sections. Along the way, we stop to shake hands with all the uniforms my husband knows, but we make it to our seats without my doing anything else overtly liberal.

But then I flip through the program. The cover image appears to be a Photoshopped model ship imposed on a crested sea stock photo. Even the military is cutting costs, which is both reassuring and disconcerting. The ship’s motto, “Gung Ho,” is emblazoned across the image — working together, it means. Inside, color photographs of senior military and government leadership smile at us formidably, starting with the Commander in Chief, President Barack Obama.

Me: Look, Honey. They’re all men. President Obama’s a man. And then there’s Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, a man. Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus, another man. Naval Operations Chief Admiral Gary Roughead, a man. General James Conway, Commandant of the Marines Corps, definitely a man. Commander, Fleet Forces Command Admiral John Harvey Jr., a man. Commander, U.S. Pacific Fleet Admiral Robert Willard, a man. And look, keep turning the pages and it’s man, man, man, man, man, man, idiot actor man — our governor — man, man, man. Where are the women in senior leadership?

He: Hmmm?

Me: The women, where are the women?

He: Hmmm.

The ceremony starts, saving him, and the speechifying begins, although most of the folks keep it thoughtfully short. Congresswoman Susan Davis (D-San Diego) offers a quickie, touting the jobs the newly commissioned ship has brought to San Diego and enthusiastically welcoming the Navy’s first green ship, with it’s way-cool hybrid electric-drive propulsion system.

Me: The Navy invested $2.5 billion in a hybrid amphibious assault ship? That’s pretty damn Gung Ho! What more evidence of global warning could the public possibly need?

He: Hmmm?

The audio system fails, so the band kicks in, to calm the restless natives. And, at last, the flag is raised aboard the ship.

Me: Good marching band, Honey.

He: Yes, that’s the Marine Drum and Bugle Corps. They’re out of D.C., called The Commandant’s Own. There’s none better.

Me: Hmmm.

Love,
K-B

©2009 Kit-Bacon Gressitt

Survey results chart courtesy of Pew Research Center for the People & the Press.

USS Makin Island photos by Kit-Bacon Gressitt.

Part 3 of 3

By Kit-Bacon Gressitt

Ibrahim directs literacy programs for girls and women in the Ghazni Province of Afghanistan (supported by San Diego-based Rescue Task Force, RFT), despite violent opposition by the Taliban and Al Qaeda insurgents (see Parts 1 and 2 of this series). The following paragraphs are a continuation of Ibrahim’s email (edited for clarity) describing the international intervention and aid he believes is necessary to bring stability to Afghanistan, including protection and support of schools. He is particularly concerned about what he believes is too passive an international military force and calls for a more aggressive U.S.-NATO strategy.

From Ibrahim:

Illiterates are as fuel in the machines of Muslim fundamentalists. Educated people are rarely deceived by wild Taliban to kill themselves to go to heaven. Weakness of Muslim fundamentalists means success of the Afghan government. So a more literate population means more power and ability of the Afghan government.

Afghan widow with her child begs in Kabul

There is a proverb in Persian ‘wearing of the clothes [requires the body fit] the clothes.’ So, suppose if the USA and other friendly countries by their friendly help bring progress and peace and enough work facilities in Afghanistan, illiterates still cannot find work because they do not have the ability to read and write. Learning most jobs needs literacy. Surely a more literate population will improve my government’s ability to succeed.

I believe increasing the U.S. military force in Afghanistan with real actions will have the best effect for my literacy programs, for Hazara communities and all Afghanistan. I believe passive action by U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan gave life to those Taliban who escaped from Afghanistan and were hidden in Pakistan. Yes, the ISI (Pakistan’s Directorate of Inter-Services Intelligence), by its aggressive action, has [helped the insurgents] succeed over about 40 powerful countries that have been more passive in Afghanistan.

I request the new U.S. administration, especially Mr. Barack Obama, give attention to these following points:

– Pashtun areas in Afghanistan and Pakistan are the main network and strong front of terrorists. If there are any bomb explosions in London, Paris, Madrid, undoubtedly the root, planning and one side of that string is in the Pashtun areas, with help and planning from the ISI. So I hope increasing the U.S. force will be with aggressive actions, not passive as there is now.

– About 200 meters from the U.S. military, the Taliban are blocking the roads, burning the trucks and capturing and killing those people who are working for progress in Afghanistan. I hope the U.S. forces will keep peaceful all the highways and the roads that cross from Pashtun areas to the areas of other [ethnic groups] like the Hazara, Tajic and Uzbek.

Hazara villagers meet at a mosque to discuss damage caused by Kuchis (Pashtun nomads) who were supported by Taliban

– The Taliban are annoying and killing the Hazara people during their crossing along the unpaved roads from Pashtun areas to Hazarajat [in central Afghanistan]. The Taliban want the Hazara to stop helping Afghan and U.S. forces. So I propose the new U.S. administration put special forces along all the routes that cross from Pashtun areas to Hazarajat, especially the roads between the Qarabagh and Jaghri districts of the Ghazni Province. Afghanistan is very different from the USA. Success in Afghanistan without force and action is impossible.

– I request from President-elect Barack Obama to give kind attention in the [more peaceful] central and northern parts of Afghanistan by making schools, hospitals, universities, getting electricity from rivers and paving the roads and making factories.

According to my idea, the people and governments of every country are as the bone and meat of a body, all humans from all over the world are as parts of a body. Only with cooperation of the bone and meat will the body be strong and healthy. If there is pain in one part of a body, undoubtedly the other parts will not live in peace.

In summary, I hope the answer to love will be love and the answer to [shooting] will be [shooting].

Long live the USA. Long live the Afghan-U.S. friendship.
Ibrahim

(Photos by Nasim Fekrat ©2009.)

Part 2 of 3

By Kit-Bacon Gressitt

Some years before Al Qaeda’s September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the United States, my attention was drawn to the country by the 1996 revelation of the Taliban regime’s practice of stoning for adultery. A subsequent flow of disturbing news from the Revolutionary Association of Women of Afghanistan (RAWA) led to a faulty attempt to convince the newspaper editorial board on which I served at the time to condemn the Taliban’s treatment of women and girls and begin a campaign to encourage U.S. intervention.

I failed, along with human rights organizations around the world. The Taliban atrocities and denial of women’s human and civil rights — even their right to an education — continued freely and enthusiastically, until the U.S. October 2001 retaliatory invasion of Afghanistan. Al Qaeda dispersed and the Taliban regime fell quickly, despite the extremists’ handy stock of weapons previously supplied by the United States to the mujahideen fight against the Soviets and their Afghan puppet government. It’s a bitter irony, made even more so by the persistence of Taliban and Al Qaeda violence in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

This year, greater U.S. and NATO involvement is expected, Afghanistan’s presidential election will be held, and there is a global interest in preventing the failing state from becoming a failed one, undermined by the Taliban and Al Qaeda insurgency; poverty, illiteracy and lack of basic services; and uncoordinated military and humanitarian operations. With this reinvigorated focus, the landscape for daily living in Afghanistan could improve. Ibrahim, who directs literacy programs for girls and women in the Ghazni Province of Afghanistan (see Part 1 of this series), describes in his email below (edited for clarity) his hope that his country will achieve success through improved education, particularly for the girls and women denied schooling by the Taliban, and with international intervention.

From Ibrahim:

After the Taliban were removed from power, I was happily in hope of having a peaceful life, progress in my country and a bright future. I returned to Afghanistan and hoped that with the United Nations, NATO and especially the great country of democracy (USA) alongside the Afghan oppressed people, my country would not be used any longer as a strong front and main center of Muslim terrorists.

The main problem of Afghanistan was and is illiteracy, and because of illiteracy and ignorance, Afghans are vulnerable to the hope of going to heaven [promoted] by Muslim extremists. So to rescue my people from extremism, and in hope of making a bright future by ending illiteracy, I decided to work in that field — by making literacy schools in remote areas where the government cannot work. With the help of my friends, especially Gary Becks [president and founder of the Rescue Task Force], I can teach the skills of reading and writing to thousands of illiterate women in central Afghanistan.

Students of all ages attend RTF literacy programs in Afghanistan

Unfortunately … my hopes have never been realized [for the rest of the nation]. Still there is not peace, especially in south and southeast parts of Afghanistan where mostly Pashtun tribal [people] are living. After about seven years of NATO forces in Afghanistan, the oppressed people are still slaughtered as sheep by wild Taliban. The Taliban are still pulling out the eyes and cutting the noses and ears of Afghan teachers and students whose only sin is getting an education — as a few days ago the Taliban poured nitrate on the faces of the girl students and teachers.

I can surely say that by [teaching the] illiterates in Afghanistan who are used as donkeys and cows by the Taliban, Muslim extremists will find no more cows and donkeys to use for their aims. … Educated parents will present educated and polite children to society. By literate and educated families, we will have literate and educated villages, and by literate and educated villages, we will have literate districts and by educated districts, we will have literate and educated provinces and country and finally, by educated countries, we will have a peaceful, educated world. So literacy is the foundation of peace and a bright future.

Note: In Part 3, coming 11 January, Ibrahim makes a request of President-elect Barack Obama.

©2009 Kit-Bacon Gressitt

(Photo by Kurt Swann ©2008.)

By Kit-Bacon Gressitt

Most folks in the United States know about Afghanistan only what they have read in “The Kite Runner” and “A Thousand Splendid Suns,” Khaled Hosseini’s beautiful, brutal novels set in the country’s tumultuous years of Soviet invasion, Taliban rule and the aftermath. Our minimal understanding of the distant land seems matched by our disinterest. Prior to the books’ publications, not even our October 2001 invasion of the country in pursuit of the terrorists behind the September 11 attacks and subsequent efforts to achieve stability could hold the public’s interest when enticed by President George W. Bush’s push into Iraq in pursuit of weapons of mass destruction and paternal approval.

With the Iraq War winding down to a success or failure, depending upon whose PR dominates, and a resurgence of Taliban atrocities reaching mainstream media, the United States is now refocusing on Afghanistan, but how do we truly succeed? How do we help stabilize a country ravaged by conflict, poverty, ignorance, neglect and uncoordinated efforts? It’s a question repeated around the globe, from the hallowed halls of government and academia to the classified planning conferences of the military to the dark closets of intelligence agencies, and one of the common answers is to engage the Afghan people. While the answer seems obvious, it’s an approach at which the United States government has often failed; yet the call to engage the Afghan people is popping up all over the place.

– Ashraf Ghani, PhD, Afghan finance minister between 2002 and 2004 and founder and chairman of the Institute for State Effectiveness, wrote in a recent commentary, “[S]tability will only come when Afghanistan can govern itself. To reach that point, three key assets must be harnessed: first, American forces and resources; second, the instruments of national and international power; and third and most crucially, the Afghan people, who are as eager to see the restoration of order and justice.”

– The Atlantic Council of the United States published in its 2008 Afghanistan brief, “On the security side, a stalemate of sorts has taken hold. NATO and Afghan forces cannot be beaten by the insurgency or by the Taliban. Neither can our forces eliminate the Taliban by military means as long as they have sanctuary in Pakistan. Hence, the future of Afghanistan will be determined by progress or failure in the civil sector.”

– Army General Davis Petraeus, commander of the U.S. Central Command, and co-author of a controversial but well-embraced counterinsurgency field manual, said at an event in November, “[T]he terrain that matters most is the human terrain — the people. Clearly, we have to understand the people, their culture, their social structures, their religions, how systems that support them are supposed to work and how they actually work, and so on. And our most important tasks have to be to secure and serve those people, as well as to respect them, to facilitate the provision of basic services: the establishment of local governance, and the revival of local economies.”

– And, an Afghan named Ibrahim wrote, “I think it will be better that Afghanistan and friendly countries put more attention in construction in peaceful areas as an example to those people who still persist in fighting. Poorness, hunger and not having a job are big problems in Afghanistan. Some poor people, to rescue their families from death because of hunger, are hired by the Taliban, so I think if the new administration brings job facilities beside of military action, it will be most effective.”

RTF students greet visitors

Ibrahim directs literacy programs for Afghan girls and women, sponsored by the San Diego County-based nonprofit Rescue Task Force (RTF). Kurt Swann, an RTF volunteer, recently toured the programs in the Ghazni Province of Afghanistan, operated despite Taliban opposition. Swann and Ibrahim reported successes in the small Hazara towns of the province, where the Taliban are not active. But driving there from the capitol Kabul is dangerous, with Taliban-operated roadblocks and the Taliban proclivity for killing anyone who works with foreign agencies and governments.

Clearing the road to Jaghori

According to Ibrahim, “The ways especially in southern parts of Afghanistan are not safe. Hundreds of sinless passengers lost their lives during crossing from those areas. The Taliban are daily blocking the ways to find and kill social workers or those who are working with NATO force or Afghan government.” Indeed, Ibrahim’s identity is protected here because his position with the RTF has made him a target: His brother was killed by the Taliban who mistook him for Ibrahim.

Ibrahim shared via email information about the literacy programs and his country that reveals the ongoing Taliban violence, U.S.-NATO weaknesses and Afghans’ resilient hope for progress, information that can help us better understand what at least one Afghan wants for his country.

Love,
K-B

Note: Visit again Thursday 08 January for Part 2.

©2009 Kit-Bacon Gressitt

(Photos by Kurt Swann ©2008.)