After the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan in 1979, all Western media was expelled. But in 1981, Elizabeth Gould and Paul Fitzgerald became the first US journalists to gain entry into Afghanistan. They talk about their book.
The husband and wife writing team of Gould and Fitzgerald have documented changes in Afghan culture and political life starting with the Greeks and working forward through WWII to include descriptions of the impact of British, American, Russian, and other, attempts at dominating Afghanistan and building empire.
There is a kind of history black out on the kind of information they report. In the time since their first visit to Afghanistan they have written extensively about the history of the country known as the grave yard of empire. Their blog is www.invisiblehistory.com
Produced by Dori Smith
Topics:*The Durand Line, created in 1893 by India's Foreign Secretary, Sir Mortimer Durand. *Former Afghan leader, Mohammed Daoud, and his difficulties with US anti-communist figures who thought he might be 'turning lefty'. *Former National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger, under Nixon, and former National Security Advisor, Zbigniew Brzezinski, under Carter. *The introduction to 'Invisible History' was written by human rights expert Sima Wali. She wrote about the important roles Afghan women held prior to the late 1970s when she fled the country. In part one of this series, Gould and Fitzgerald discuss the Afghanistan they saw, the one Sima Wali grew up in, versus the one US policies helped create under several different US administrations extending from Nixon through George H. W. Bush and George W. Bush. Women's rights have been in decline due to the impact of American policies that included support for war lords and religious extremists.
Part 1 of 2, Next time we will hear their thoughts on some of the people supported by the West during and after WWII and the Cold War. Elizabeth Gould discusses what the Obama White House can do to improve US policy toward Afghanistan. Should the US withdraw forces? She says de-militarization of US policy in Afghanistan is one of the answers.
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