'Kabul I love you' brings Afghan woes to the big screen

Thursday, 1 August 2013

Kabul, Aug 2 (Newswire): A decade after the fall of the cinema-hating Taliban, a group of Afghan directors have created a film love letter to their capital, rooted in the grim reality of everyday life in the war-torn city.

Forced marriage, people smuggling, illegal land grabs, land mines and ethnic conflict — life in Kabul is not short of problems, and "Kabul I Love You" explores them through 10 interwoven stories.

Afghanistan's film industry was hammered by 17 years of war after the Soviet invasion in 1979 and was snuffed out entirely under the extreme rule of the Taliban.

During their 1996-2001 regime, the hardliners closed cinemas and hung televisions from lampposts, regarding all images as un-Islamic. Even sculptures were targeted, with the famous giant Buddhas of Bamiyan paying the price.

Now Afghan cinema is struggling to re-emerge amid a wrecked economy and an ongoing insurgency against the Western-backed government of President Hamid Karzai.

Afghanistan produces around 100 films a year, according to documentary-maker Malek Shafi'i, but they are shot on tiny budgets and are often very poor.

"Kabul I Love You" has been funded by the UN mission in Afghanistan, UNAMA, as a means of giving the country's cinema a boost.

Ario Soltani, from UNAMA, says the idea was to encourage filmmakers to develop their own ideas.

"We wanted to reach the filmmakers, to support them, to communicate with Afghan people," he said.

"Not with our messages but with theirs. We hope they reflect the Afghan society and the Afghan ideas of that time."

The funding project was not an unqualified success — one of the 11 directors chosen from 200 applicants fled the country as soon as he got his hands on UNAMA's US$8,000, while another left for Iran after being threatened.

But despite these setbacks, the film was shot and got a warm reception when it was screened at the French cultural centre in Kabul in May.

The directors are raw and parts of the film betrayed their lack of experience — exaggerated characters, hammy dialogue and deathly slow pace.

But others showed real flair, with the modest, restrained dialogue of Farhad Razae's segment, a bitter denunciation of forced marriage, a highlight.

In the short section, titled "Virgin Towers," the caretaker of a mosque learns that a pretty young woman in his place of worship has fled her family to escape marrying one of her relatives.

The young woman, denounced by a neighbour, ends up running from the police. Her heavy breath and field of vision restricted by the burqa she wears to hide herself allow the viewer to feel the horror of the condition of women in Afghanistan.

Rezae said he based the film on experiences he had as a young man looking after a mosque.

"During that time, a girl was coming for prayers. She would rest in the mosque two hours after the prayers. I wanted to know who this girl is, but I was ashamed and because of religion, I never asked her what her problems were," said Rezae.

Shafi'i hailed Rezae's achievement, saying he had "managed to get closer to Afghan realities" than other film-makers.

Writers and artists have been pushing boundaries in what remains an extremely conservative society in the past 5 years, Shafi'i said.

"Now, people have started to realise that if they cross borders, nothing will happen to them," he said.

NATO forces are due to depart Afghanistan by the end of 2014 and the precarious security situation they will leave behind is not likely to be conducive to this dream of artistic growth.

Saying "Kabul I Love You" is a message of hope from these budding film-makers for their future.

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Aurora heroes: Three who gave their lives

Washington, Aug 2 (Newswire): Great evil often brings out the best in good men, men like Todd Beamer on Flight 93, Medal of Honor recipient Michael Murphy in Afghanistan and now the Aurora three -- the three young men, each in different parts of theater nine, who gave their lives to protect their girlfriends.

Twenty-five-year-old Jon Blunk was sitting next to his girlfriend, Jansen Young, at the midnight premiere of "The Dark Knight Rises" when the gunman (who shall remain nameless) opened fire in the dark theater. Blunk instinctively pushed his girlfriend to the ground and threw his body on top of hers. Blunk, a security guard, served eight years in the Navy and was in the process of re-enlisting in hopes of becoming a Navy SEAL, family and friends said. He was killed in the gunfire; his girlfriend survived.

Twenty-four-year-old Alex Teves dived on top of his girlfriend, Amanda Lindgren, when the gunfire erupted. Covering her body, he took the bullets so they did not harm her. She survived the massacre; he did not.

Matt McQuinn, 27 years old, threw his body in front of his girlfriend, Samantha Yowler, as the shooting continued. Yowler survived with a gunshot wound to the knee; McQuinn's body absorbed the fatal shots.

These men were three of the 12 innocent people killed early that morning. Their incredible sacrifice leaves us asking: Why? Why would a young man with his entire life ahead of him risk everything for a woman he has no legal, financial or marital obligations to?

They believed, to put it simply, in a code of honor. They put the lives of the women before their own, an old fashioned notion to be sure, but certainly an honorable one (if you have any doubt, ask the survivors). Their instincts were to protect, not run away.

From all accounts, these young men were average, working men in their 20s. (We know a little about Jon Blunk, but not much, and we know even less about the others.) Like all men, they had their own struggles. After his death we learned that Blunk had an ex-wife and two children living in Nevada. He was scheduled to visit them to resolve marital issues. This isn't to take anything away from Blunk or the other two heroes, but to illustrate that, in spite of shortcomings, men can still recognize what it means to be a good man and act like one.

This is especially important given the state of many men. Record numbers of men aren't working or even looking for work. Record numbers aren't marrying or even acting as fathers to their children. These men need heroes to imitate whom they can relate to in everyday life, not just make-believe superheroes who catch their imagination for an hour or two. They need heroes like the Aurora three.

While much of the media obsesses over the psychology and motivations of this deranged killer, we should hold the Aurora three high. It is only by telling their story that this code of honor will survive for future generations of men. "The world is forwarded by having its attention fixed on the best things," Matthew Arnold wrote.

In an age when traditional manhood has been increasingly relegated to fiction -- capes, masks and green screens -- these three men stand as real-life heroes. Their actions remind us that good triumphs over evil, not just in movies, but also in reality.

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Canada’s Afghan legacy: Plan for Kandahar dam was dropped when mission ended, US says

Washington, Aug 2 (Newswire): Canada had a plan to increase the water supply to desperate farmers in the Taliban heartland, but dropped it because Ottawa ended the Kandahar mission before the Dahla Dam could be restored, the U.S. military says.

Water flowing from the dam's reservoir is critical to the irrigation of thousands of desert farms, the backbone of the only economy Kandahar has outside of foreign aid and military spending, which is fast drying up as troops withdraw.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper declared the effort to restore the dam, and the irrigation canals snaking through the battleground of the Arghandab River valley, the top of Canada's three "signature projects," followed by school building and vaccinations against polio.

Canada spent $50 million on the dam and irrigation canals before Ottawa pulled all Canadian troops and civilian staff from Kandahar last fall. Much of the budget went to private security and other expenses, sums Ottawa refuses to disclose.

Afghan officials claim millions of dollars were wasted on security firms that operated like protection rackets, along with needless studies, leaving them without the solution they wanted — a higher dam wall — when the Canadians left.

"The Canadian forces had a two-part plan. The second part of the plan was to raise Dahla by five to eight metres to increase the amount of water that the dam can hold," Mark Ray, chief of public affairs for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in Kandahar, wrote in an email.

"They departed the theatre before they could implement the second part of their plan. The United States has taken on the responsibility for funding and executing this work and is moving forward with it."

More: Millions in Canadian aid fail to bring justice to Afghanistan

Ottawa's public statements on the rehabilitation project have not mentioned plans to raise the dam. In January 2009, then-international co-operation minister Bev Oda announced work was set to begin on the structure, built by American engineers in the 1950s. She said repairs would be completed by 2011.

The Harper government awarded the $50-million project to Quebec-based engineering giant SNC-Lavalin and consulting firm Hydrosult.

Julian Fantino, Harper's new minister responsible for the Canadian International Development Agency, declined an interview request. But following a July 14 Star report on the dam project's problems, he called the story "childish" and "immature" in an interview with Embassy magazine.

"It's really unfair . . . how you can be so critical of a nation, in our own country, that is so lauded, and appreciated, and recognized elsewhere in the world," Fantino was quoted as saying. "It's total lack of appreciation for the goodness of Canadians and what we're doing around the world."

CIDA sent a technical team to study the Dahla Dam, and related irrigation and agricultural areas, in April 2007, said agency spokeswoman Katherine Heath-Eves.

A year of data collection and study produced a 421-page, peer-reviewed "Technical Appraisal Mission" report, in which "development options were presented for increasing irrigation water," she added.

The CIDA team found that more than 70 per cent of water released from the dam was wasted each year, Heath-Eves said.

"Throughout hundreds of kilometres of canals, severe leaks and broken infrastructure was allowing the water to drain across half the province, instead of being used for irrigated agriculture.

"As such, the canal infrastructure and serious leakages were addressed first — as Phase 1.

"The TAM report also gave some initial information on the possibility of raising the dam, as long as further studies were conducted."

Ray, of the U.S. army engineers, said he sat in on a briefing by CIDA officials preparing to leave Kandahar last fall. They "discussed their work with the Arghandab River irrigation system" at the briefing, Ray said.

CIDA handed over study results and data "plus three conceptual alternatives for increasing the reservoir capacity and (resolving) water distribution problems," said Karla Marshall, another spokeswoman for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

"One of the alternatives they envisioned for the dam is similar to the solution USACE is now pursuing," she added.

The American effort is expected to cost from $100 million to $250 million, with up to $75 million from the Afghan government if it decides to add another three metres to the five-metre increase the U.S. military is committed to building.

If the work goes ahead as planned, it will start as the U.S. military is ending its lead role in the country and Afghan troops and police are called on to do what the world's most powerful military couldn't: defeat the Taliban and its allies.

Washington is already withdrawing troops and is committed to get all but a small force out by the end of 2014.

The U.S. army engineers have a two-phase plan to finish work on the dam. They expect to award the contract for the first step — the repair of the intake and outlet works — this fall, Marshall said.

But that first round of construction isn't scheduled to be completed before spring 2015, she added. That's long after the vast majority of U.S. and other foreign combat troops are due to leave Afghanistan.

The contract for the second phase, which focuses on raising the dam by five metres, is to be awarded in the spring of 2013, assuming funds are available, Marshall said.

That construction is expected to take 27 months, she added, which means the crucial work to increase the dam reservoir's capacity will run well into 2016, when many Afghans fear they could be embroiled in a new civil war.

"A security plan is included in USACE's contract solicitation," Marshall said.

"We are very aware of the future force strength and are working with the (NATO-led) International Security Assistance Force, (American forces in Afghanistan) and the battle space owner to ensure that adequate security remains in place for the duration of construction."

Kandahar Governor Tooryalai Wesa, an Afghan-Canadian, frequently complained to Canadian officials that too much of the dam project's budget was being spent on "unnecessary costs like security and training," said his chief of staff Pervez Najeeb.

Najeeb, who said he worked closely with Canadian civilian and military officials, never heard them discuss any plans beyond doing basic work such as cleaning canals, repairing water valves and gates, and training farmers on water use.

"Our officials, including the governor, have always raised some concerns about the weaknesses of the project," Najeeb said.

The private security contract for the Canadian dam and irrigation project was awarded to a London company, which subcontracted to an Afghan security company, the chief of staff added.

"Close to $10 million to $15 million was spent on security, which is too much," he said. "We were asking the Canadian officials, 'Are you are also working in Canada like this?' "

Sher Mohammed Atai, who worked closely with Canadians as head of the Kandahar government's Arghandab Irrigation Rehabilitation Project, said he told Canadians that raising the current structure's 50-metre wall by five metres would be a good Plan B.

"We advised that if it was possible, they should make a new dam for us because 30 years from now, this dam will be totally falling apart," Atai said. "They said it's not possible.

"Then we suggested they increase the height of the dam. Then again, they said it was too expensive. So they finally decided to just do some small repair work on the dam and clean the canals.

"They said, 'Building a new dam is a long project. Of course we will work on it in the future, but not now,' " Atai added.

So the job of completing the most critical repairs to the dam that Harper put at the top of the list of his government's three "signature projects" in Kandahar now falls to the U.S.

The "water supply to Kandahar province does not reach 30 per cent of the irrigation canals refurbished by the Canadian International Development Agency over the past several years," the U.S. army engineers said in a June 25 news release.

Frustrated Kandahari farmers and officials wonder why, more than a decade after the U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, the Dahla Dam and irrigation that is crucial to the province's economy still hasn't been fully fixed.

They complain that it's part of a much larger problem: Years of delay, and a massive loss of foreign aid money to waste and corruption, mean Kandahar province still lacks the infrastructure its economy needs to survive as foreign support dries up.

The long wait for a reliable supply of water to irrigate farms in the Taliban heartland feeds disappointment and resentment that insurgents use to build support for their war against foreign forces and the corrupt Afghan government they defend.

At least three recent books quote at length American and British military commanders and officials who think Canada was out of its depth in Kandahar, the Taliban's birthplace where insurgents draw strength from popular support. They include Little America: The War Within the War for Afghanistan by the Washington Post's Rajiv Chandrasekaran;War Against the Taliban: Why it All Went Wrong in Afghanistan by Sandy Gall, a British foreign correspondent with long experience in Afghanistan; and Cables From Kabul: The Inside Story of the West's Afghanistan Campaign, by Sherard Cowper-Coles, Britain's former ambassador to Afghanistan.

Ray revealed the scuttled Dahla Dam plan in a spirited defence of Canadian efforts following the Star report that described farmers' anger over a chronic shortage of water, despite promises that foreign aid would solve their chief problem.

"On a personal level — the Canadians who served here worked long and hard, at the risk of their lives, to upgrade the irrigation system in Kandahar province," Ray wrote.

"I find it appalling that their efforts are misrepresented and trivialized by this article."

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Politician to post shirtless photos: Florida state Rep. Peter Nehr

 Florida, Aug 2 (Newswire): Some local media outlets noted they were sent to a political blog, which spurred Nehr's response. Nehr is running for re-election in the northern Pinellas-southern Pasco district of Florida.

Sending shirtless pictures that end up widely distributed on the Internet is usually a recipe for disaster.

Tawdry photos already forced two congressmen out of office. Former Rep. Christopher Lee, R-N.Y., abruptly resigned from the House after a report emerged that he sent flirtatious emails, including one with a bare-chested photo of himself, to a woman he met on Craigslist.

And former Rep. Anthony Weiner, D-N.Y., resigned after risqué online dealings with women, several of whom came forward with lewd photos and texts the congressman had exchanged with them.

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