U.S. Responds to Broad Public Campaign, Grants Malalai Joya Visa!

March 24, 2011 - Afghan Women’s Mission

The U.S. State Department today granted acclaimed Afghan human rights activist and former MP Malalai Joya, a visa, a little over a week after she was initially turned down. The outspoken critic of the war in Afghanistan was informed at her initial visa interview that because she “lived underground” and was “unemployed” she would not be allowed into the U.S. for an extensive speaking tour, even though she had been granted visas 4 times over the past several years. Due to the visa denial, Joya has already missed all her events in New York and Washington DC and is now on her way to Boston to finish up the rest of her tour.   She will appear as scheduled with Noam Chomsky at Harvard Friday night and in Jamaica Plain on Saturday afternoon.

Afghan Women’s Mission’s Co-Director Sonali Kolhatkar responded to the news saying, “We are ecstatic and gratified that the government finally did the right thing and allowed Malalai Joya into the country so that Americans could hear what she has to say about the reality of the war, and particularly how Afghan women are faring under the occupation.” Kolhatkar added, “It is a testament to the nationwide campaign that was launched by our national coalition of organizations and individuals who worked very hard to put the events together and to bring her to the U.S.”
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Americans are hardwired to expect their military to fix foreign crises, but we should resist the calls of DC’s armchair generals

by Stephen Kinzer, March 9, 2011 – guardian.co.uk

The urge to intervene around the world may truly have become hardwired into the American psyche. How else to explain the seriousness with which some in Washington are suggesting that the United States take sides in the unfolding civil war in Libya?

The US is fighting two wars in Muslim countries. Since the results have included thousands of dead Americans, a near-bankrupt treasury and a surge in anti-Americanism in the world’s most volatile region, launching a third war might seem unwise. Intervening in Libya would require the US to take sides in a highly obscure conflict. Any group the US helps bring to power would be heavily tainted, and Americans would have to defend it in an explosive environment.

And few people in the Middle East, or anywhere else, would believe that the US had intervened in an oil-rich Arab state without being interested in securing its oil.

Intervention in Libya has all the makings of another Middle East quagmire. The urge to intervene there, however, is not driven solely by factors related to Libya. Sure, there is genuine outrage at the brutality Muammar Gaddafi is inflicting on his people. No doubt, some American strategists have their eyes on Libyan oil, and others are looking for a new platform for US power in the Middle East. But beneath it all is the deep belief that when there is trouble in Libya – or Liberia or Lesotho or Laos or Lithuania – the United States needs to take a decisive stand and push to impose the solution it finds best.
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