They discuss power-sharing with the Taliban, drone strikes along the Afghan border in northwest Pakistan and broader American foreign policy challenges in the region.

For more on the Obama and the World series click here.

Tension was under the surface as we negotiated with the contractor, trying to chip away another $10,000 from his bid. The price to build a school in South Sudan, I have learned, is exorbitantly high.

I am here with Gabriel Bol Deng, who is featured in my new documentary film, Rebuilding Hope. Gabriel Bol, one of the “Lost Boys of Sudan” has been raising money for three years to build a school in Ariang, his native village. We were not prepared for just how costly such a venture is.

South Sudan came out of decades of devastating civil war only five years ago. Infrastructure was nearly non-existent when the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) was signed in 2005, and now, five years later, its improvement has been creeping at best.

Students in front of the collapsing tukul that had served as the office of the former Ariang school, which met under trees. Photo: Gabriel Bol Deng

Nearly all the raw materials needed for construction is either imported from Uganda or brought in from Khartoum in the North. The price of the materials reflects the distance it had to travel to reach South Sudan. Located in Warrap state, Ariang’s isolation increases the cost as well.

Transportation to get all the building materials on site will cost almost $70,000. Cutting corners to get the price down is not recommended.

Three years ago, the NGO World Vision built four schools in Warrap State. The iron-sheeting roofs of all four blew off during last year’s rainy season. The climate is harsh and unforgiving in South Sudan.

Perhaps this explains why, as Lino Anyak Kuec, the director general of the Ministry of Education for Warrap state pointed out in our meeting last week, 90 percent of the 344 primary schools are still functioning under trees.

It is difficult to ascertain the exact population of Warrap state that these 344 primary schools serve. According to the 2008 census, there are close to 1 million people. Southerners, however, contest the census results and in fact, Kuec told us, the numbers of people who registered to vote in the 2010 elections surpassed the census results.

Warrap is a “new” state, born out of the signing of the CPA. Kuajok, the capital of Warrap state, was created in 2006. The problems faced by all states in South Sudan are intensified in Warrap, which had no previous experience or even minimal infrastructure to draw on.

The lack of constructed schools is one indicator of the challenges that the state faces. In Kuajok, the state capital, there are 5,220 students divided among only three primary schools, averaging 217.5 students in each classroom.

There are only eight secondary schools in all of Warrap State, which is about 220 miles in length, and only two of them have their own facility. The others use rooms in six of thirty-odd constructed primary schools. This arrangement will end soon; the primary schools are desperate for all their classroom space.

They are asking the secondary school classes to vacate their premises. There are only 2,000 secondary students in all of Warrap state—an indication of the drop-out rate, especially high for girls, as well as a commentary on the lack of education during the war and the subsequent need for Southern Sudanese to catch up. Many of the students studying in primary school are teenagers or adults.

Clearing straw from future Ariang School site. Photo: Gabriel Bol Deng

A school building, of course, is only one step towards a functioning school. Every school needs basic supplies, which schools in South Sudan are sorely lacking, whether they are housed in a building or under trees. Currently, only one-third of the classes in Warrap state have chalkboards.

Last year, UNICEF provided 1 chalkboard for each school. Each school had to decide—which class would be the lucky one to receive the chalkboard?

The quality of teaching in Warrap state is also a grave concern. During the war, there were a handful of scattered “bush schools”, so-called because they operated “in the bush.” The teachers were primarily untrained rebel fighters who gathered children during lulls in the violence to teach them whatever they knew from their own schooling. When fighting resumed, the bush schools stopped.

Many of these former rebel/bush teachers are now teaching in the primary schools. “We cannot ask them to stop teaching,” Kuec said. He suggested two reasons why. One is connected to the Government of South Sudan’s loyalty to those who fought and served with the Sudan People’s Liberation Army during the war. And, Kuec pointed out, there are not teachers with more adequate training to replace them.

The lack of trained teachers is perhaps the greatest challenge to providing an adequate education to children in South Sudan. Teachers lack not only methodology, but basic, general knowledge. Often, those with a sixth grade education level are teaching grade 4.

There are many qualified teachers among Southerners, but a large percentage of them received their schooling in Khartoum, following an Arabic language curriculum. The Government of South Sudan (GoSS) has determined that the language of instruction is English.

Educated Southerners fluent in Arabic cannot teach an English language curriculum. GoSS, strapped with budget deficits all around, pays teachers approximately $100/month. Subsequently, teachers often take second jobs to supplement this income. It is not uncommon for a teacher to send a friend to take over his class a few days a week while he is busy working as a driver.

Despite the constant uphill struggle, improvement has been made. 150 out of Warrap’s 3,000 teachers are currently in a training course and in February, 240 more will begin a three-month course.

Gabriel Bol teaches children in the Ariang school, which continues to meet under trees until he constructs their school building. Photo courtesy of Rebuilding Hope

In 2007, teachers complained that their salaries arrived months late if they came at all, and teachers had to travel to Kuajok to receive them, sometimes closing school for a week each month or two in order to make the journey on foot and return.

The salaries in 2010, though inadequate, are at least paid regularly. Teachers receive payment in their own district rather than having to travel to Kuajok. The system is computerized, enabling much better record keeping. Baby steps, but important ones.

Gabriel Bol continued to negotiate with the contractor, trying to convince him to reduce the cost of building the school without reducing the quality.

Even after the contractor agreed to shave off the $10,000, Gabriel Bol will have to raise an additional $50,000 when he returns to the U.S. in order for the construction to be completed. And he is well-aware, even as he negotiates the transport for gravel, cement, and iron sheeting, that building this school is only the first step. Gabriel Bol’s goal is not only that the children of his village have a school building, it’s that they have an education.

There is much work to be done.

- Jen Marlowe

Mutallab purportedly has links to radical imam Anwar al-Awlaki, the cleric known to have contacted alleged Ft. Hood shooter Nidal Hassan.

Martin Savidge hosts Christopher Boucek and Sudarsan Raghavan.

We examine the situation with al-Qaeda in Yemen and then address additional angles of the shifting circumstances.

The show analyzes the background of three different ongoing conflicts:

• al-Qaeda in Yemen (current activities, terror threat, government efforts)

• Houthi rebels in North (independence goals, Iran v. Saudi, Shia minority)

• South Yemen separatists (historical roots, central government weakness, clans)

The Yemeni capital of Sana’a. Photo: Flickr user Eesti

GUESTS:

Christopher Boucek is a research associate in the Middle East Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, where he focuses on regional security challenges. He has written widely on the Middle East, Central Asia, and terrorism.

Sudarsan Raghavan is the Washington Post’s correspondent in Yemen. He was recently their Baghdad bureau chief and next month will become their Africa bureau chief. He has reported from more than 50 countries and nine war zones in Africa, the Middle East, Asia, the former Soviet Union and Central America.

Credits:
Host: Martin Savidge
Producers: Ben Piven and Lisa Biagiotti

A UN peacekeeping armored personnel carrier patrols the roads. Rutshuru, North Kivu, 2008. Photo: Michael J. Kavanagh

Contributor Michael J. Kavanagh reported for Worldfocus last year on the crisis in eastern Congo. He’s currently based in the DR Congo’s capital, Kinshasa.

He discusses the controversy surrounding the United Nations’ peacekeeping mission, the problems with integration of rebels into Congolese Army ranks and the economic future of this resource-rich, war-torn country.

Q: Why has the UN’s peacekeeping mission come under such intense criticism in eastern Congo?

Michael J. Kavanagh: For the past year, the Congolese army has been fighting a group of Rwandan rebels known as the FDLR (Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda) who’ve lived in eastern Congo for around 15 years.

They’re mostly Hutu and some of their leaders are implicated in the Rwandan Genocide of 1994. This military mission began in concert with the Rwandan army in January and February 2009. Since March, it’s been supported by the UN peacekeepers.

This has been hugely controversial because the military operations have caused the deaths of well over a thousand civilians, the rape of several thousand and the displacement of around a million people. Rwandan rebels and the Congolese army are both accused of war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Peacekeepers were put in a difficult position as the operations progressed because their mandate essentially became contradictory: They’re supposed to protect civilians while at the same time support a Congolese army that’s often killing civilians.

A former CNDP rebel holds a rocket propelled grenade at a ceremony for rebel integration into the Congolese army. Masisi, North Kivu, 2009. Photo: Michael J. Kavanagh

Q: Earlier this year, as part of a deal between Rwanda and Congo, the Rwandan-backed CNDP rebel group was integrated into the ranks of the Congolese army. How has this impacted the conflict in eastern Congo?

Michael J. Kavanagh: A year ago the UN released a report saying that Rwanda was supporting a rebel group in eastern Congo known as the National Congress for the Defense of the People, or CNDP. The international community pressured Rwanda to stop this and now after nearly 15 years of fighting each other, Rwanda and Congo are nominally allies.

The CNDP has been integrating into the Congolese army over the past year as part of a peace deal, but they are still committing massive atrocities in eastern Congo, they’re just now wearing Congolese Army uniforms. Their leader, Bosco Ntaganda, is wanted by the International Criminal Court for war crimes.

Various human rights groups and even the UN itself have documented these atrocities by ex-CNDP forces, but the Congolese government has been hesitant to complain because they don’t want to upset their new (peaceful) relationship with Rwanda.

Meanwhile, tiny-but-powerful Rwanda benefits from the illegal trade in natural resources in eastern Congo, as do other neighboring countries like Uganda and Burundi and Tanzania. So this is still a regional problem that requires a regional, political solution as much as a military one.

Displaced families finding shelter in a school. Kiwanja, North Kivu, 2008. Photo: Michael J. Kavanagh

Q: The peacekeeping mission in Congo is the UN’s largest. How relevant is the UN’s mission there? What will happen when the mandate expires in five months?

Michael J. Kavanagh: The UN mission in Congo is huge - its budget is more than $1.4 billion a year and over 20,000 soldiers and civilians work for it. But you need to remember how big Congo is - it’s the size of western Europe with 60+ million people.

We’re asking a lot of these peacekeepers — probably more than they can provide given their resources and the difficulty of operating in Congo. Besides basic logistical issues, the Congolese government and army have not always been partners in good faith, nor have other regional partners like Rwanda and Uganda.

Over the last 10 years, the results of the peacekeeping mission have been mixed. So on December 23, the UN renewed its mandate for only five months instead of the usual 12, to send a sign that they were rethinking how the mission would do business.

They’re attaching conditionality to the support of the Congolese army — no civilian protection, no support. The UN is also asking for mechanisms to regulate the flow of illegal natural resources that are being used to enrich elements in various armed groups as well as some international companies.

Congo will celebrate 50 years of independence in June, and the government wants the UN to start drawing down its troops, but with major security issues in the east and other problems in the northeast (with the Lord’s Resistance Army) and center (a new insurgency) of the country, it’s hard to see how the Congo can afford to let UN peacekeepers leave.

For all its problems, the UN mission still provides essential services in Congo - perhaps too many, some argue - and the new mandate says another year will be added to the mandate in June.

Rwandan Defense Forces march through Pinga, North Kivu, a former FDLR stronghold, in 2009. Photo: Michael J. Kavanagh

Q: How do Congo’s rich natural resources play into the conflict?

Michael J. Kavanagh: In December, the annual UN group of experts report on Congo outlined how armed groups were exploiting minerals like gold and tin ore to support their fighting. Burundi, Uganda, Tanzania and Rwanda were all implicated in the trafficking, as were a number of international companies.

Non-governmental armed groups control some mines and they tax transport routes in eastern Congo. The Congolese army - in particular ex-CNDP elements - also control mines and transport routes. The illegal trafficking is worth tens of millions of dollars, if not more.

The UN, EU, and U.S., among others, are all working on mechanisms to regulate the exploitation of minerals - something Congo needs for development - and hold individuals and companies accountable for illegal trafficking.

Q: Recently the IMF gave Congo a new loan of more than $500 million for showing signs of economic progress. What do you make of this?

Michael J. Kavanagh: It’s a big deal. The IMF will be giving Congo well over half a billion dollars in loans over the next three years through a program intended to increase growth and reduce poverty.

The loan program is an explicit signal to international donors that in spite of ongoing conflict in the east, Congo is making macroeconomic progress, and if that progress continues, Congo could be eligible for debt relief under a World Bank and IMF program called the Highly Indebted Poor Countries Initiative, or HIPC.

You have to remember that after 15 years of war, years of dictatorship and rapacious colonialism before that, Congo is one of the poorest countries in the world.

Even with vast natural resources, the government is struggling to fix its infrastructure and pay its army, police and civil servants. IMF and World Bank loans and debt forgiveness are critical for the country to rebuild itself.

Forgiveness of most of Congo’s old debt (much of which was accumulated during years of dictatorship and war) would allow Congo to take on new debt to pay for new development and services.

A construction worker at a refugee camp takes a break during a rainstorm. Goma, North Kivu, 2009. Photo: Michael J. Kavanagh

Q: Are foreign investors optimistic about investing in Congo?

Michael J. Kavanagh: A few months ago, Congo completed a two and a half year review of international mining contracts, which was necessary but has been highly controversial.

At the moment, Congo is still renegotiating its mining contract with Phoenix-based Freeport McMoRan over one of the biggest copper and cobalt deposits in the world and it canceled a huge copper and cobalt contract with Canadian mining giant First Quantum last Fall.

This has created uncertainty regarding foreign investment in Congo.

On the one hand, many of these contracts were negotiated during the war and even if they’re legal, they’re not necessarily fair and needed to be renegotiated.

On the other hand, the mining review was far from transparent. It’s created an uneasy environment for potential and existing investors.

Growing and regulating its mining sector is probably the most important thing Congo can do to extricate itself from poverty; it’s also the sector most vulnerable to corruption.

One final prediction for the coming year: Angola and Congo have been allies for years, but there’s now a dispute over huge oil deposits off the coast of the two countries. It looks like Angola has been exploiting oil belonging to Congo, and the case has been sent to an international arbiter.

Angola is quietly furious, and this could seriously damage the relationship between the two countries and be a source of conflict over the next year. Something to think about, because Angola has always been the Congo’s ally of last resort when it’s faced serious security challenges.

- Lisa Biagiotti and Christine Kiernan

For more of Michael’s reporting, visit Worldfocus’ Crisis in Congo extended coverage page.

Special correspondent Kira Kay and producer Jason Maloney of the Bureau for International Reporting recently traveled to central Bosnia to report on how one ethnically-partitioned school mirrors the country’s struggles with ethnic identity today. The history and geography books have yet to teach students about the last 20 years of their country’s history. Both local and foreign analysts have expressed fear of future conflict.

This video was produced in partnership with the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting.

Listen to Martin Savidge host Worldfocus Radio on Bosnia’s Delicate Balance. He speaks with Nenad Pejic, Sarah Meharg and Srecko Latal about the roots of the conflict and whether or not the peace deal is on the brink of collapse.

Visit the Pulitzer Center’s site on Fragile States to explore how countries with weak infrastructures, internal conflicts and lack of economic development are vulnerable to insecurity and violence.

He’s currently based in the DR Congo’s capital, Kinshasa, and gives Daljit Dhaliwal an update on the civil war that continues to cripple the country.

Kavanagh says the security situation is the worst he has seen in a decade — since the start of the Second Congo War.

For more on Congo’s future from Michael Kavanagh, read: UN, Rwanda and investors entangled in Congo’s future. He explains the controversy surrounding the United Nations peacekeeping mission, rebel integration into Congolese Army ranks and the economic viability of this resource-rich, war-torn country.

President Obama delivering a speech. Photo: Flickr user Jurvetson

Ambassador S. Azmat Hassan is a former Ambassador of Pakistan to Malaysia, Syria and Morocco and Deputy Permanent Representative of Pakistan to the United Nations. He is currently an adjunct professor at Seton Hall University and is a contributing Worldfocus blogger.

Barack Obama’s election as President was universally welcomed. A masterful orator, his speeches promised an attitudinal sea change from the haughty neo-conservatism of the Bush administration.

He said in Prague last April that he wanted to see nuclear weapons abolished from the face of the globe. He put new energy into the Israeli-Palestinian conflict by appointing veteran trouble-shooter George Mitchell to oversee a two-state solution. And he imparted new impetus in calming the troubled waters of Afghanistan and Pakistan by recalling to service another diplomatic heavy weight, Richard Holbrooke.

His professions of friendship and goodwill toward the Muslim peoples around the globe, have created a huge impact from Morocco to Indonesia.

It seemed that this modern day Galahad had almost single-handedly succeeded in changing the negative perceptions of the United States abroad. The international community was electrified at the positive change between the Obama and Bush approaches to the world.

Almost a year later, even Obama’s fervent supporters will have to concede that the gap between intention and achievement seems to be distressingly wide. Both his domestic ratings as well as his international allure have shown a downward trend.

In his defense, it could be argued that Obama was dealt a particularly difficult hand. The collapse of the entire financial system was a frightening possibility in September 2008. Therefore much of his time and effort had to be spent in righting the economic ship of state.

Mercifully, a total meltdown, which would have created global chaos, seems to have been averted by Obama and his economic managers. However, markets are still skittish. Unemployment continues to be unacceptably high, while the US is suffering from conditions not experienced since the 1930’s Great Depression. Nonetheless it is possible at least to envisage a recovery around the corner.

Domestic constraints have rightly taken up the lion’s share of Obama’s attention. He is about to spearhead a landmark health care reform, an objective which had eluded Bill Clinton and earlier presidents. His foreign policy priorities therefore continue to remain more of a wish list than as metrics that have been implemented.

I believe that Obama, in his outreach to the global community, had good intentions. He did not want the U.S. to be perceived abroad any longer as a bullying hegemon, but as a thoughtful partner in multilateral endeavors.

I also believe that 2010 will be crucial for Obama to demonstrate that he is not just a good speech maker. He will have to show that he has the perseverance and political will to reestablish U.S. leadership in foreign affairs.

Obama’s expertise was in law and community work. As an intelligent, calm and deliberative man, he excelled in both fields.

Acquiring knowledge and experience in foreign affairs requires time and patience. Navigating Afghanistan, building up Pakistan, nudging India and Pakistan to resolve Kashmir, being the catalyst on Israel-Palestine, normalizing with Iran and North Korea – to name just a few major issues – would require much hard work, patience and luck.

I leave President Obama to ponder over the wisdom of Al Masudi, a 10th century Arab chronicler, who stated:

He who stays at home besides his hearth, and is content with the information which he may acquire concerning his own region, cannot be on the same level as one who divides his lifespan between different lands and spends his days journeying in search of precious and original knowledge.

Al Masudi, who lived over a millennium ago, is encouraging us all to get more educated and more involved with international issues that affect everyone.

How about that for a New Year’s resolution?

- S. Azmat Hassan

The president said, “The belief in peace is desirable rarely enough to achieve it” and called the escalating conflict necessary to protect the world from terrorism. He also said that the U.S. commitment to global security “will never waver.”

Steve Chao of Al Jazeera English reports from Afghanistan about why Afghans don’t think more troops will bring peace.

After hearing from the president today, do you think he deserved the Nobel Peace Prize?

Tell us what you think in the comments section below. Please remember to be respectful and on-point in your comments. Malicious or offensive comments will be deleted and repeat offenders will be banned.

Merchants at fabric shop in Afghanistan. Photo: Khushbu Shah

Worldfocus contributing blogger Khushbu Shah lives in Kabul and conducts research for a consulting firm. She writes here about the pervasiveness of corruption in the war-torn nation.

While waiting for my driver outside my friend’s house in Kabul the other night, I had a short but intense conversation with a friend who works in the security sector.

I recounted  a recent trip to twelve different Afghan provinces to monitor survey on a corruption, or rather, as we have tactfully summarized the topic, “public and private services.” Unsurprisingly, the overwhelming response from the urban population was to write corruption off as a social norm, a permanent cultural fixture. One police officer’s response to our corruption query was, “If my commander asks me to go pick up the bribes he has been offered, what do you think I am going to do?”

My experienced friend scoffed at my naïveté and proceeded to tell me about the reality on the ground. As a security officer, he has had to acquire weapons over the course of the past few months, but the procedure is not as simple as going into a shop and registering a weapon. Apparently, weapons come through the black market via the Taliban and must be registered to the government. When asked if the government knows where most of these weapons come from, he said, “What? You think there is a Wal-Mart in Afghanistan where people go to buy guns?”

He then offered more disturbing examples. Even the bases that security companies construct in certain provinces are built with the approval of contractors who have ties to the Taliban.

Just a few months prior to my arrival, the only flight in from Dubai was with a ticket through Ariana Airlines, the Afghan national carrier, even if one had booked with another company. The CEO of Ariana Airlines has strong ties to the Taliban, and essentially, purchasing a plane ticket with Ariana was the only way to receive a visa for Afghanistan.

What I really find disturbing is that the insurgents battling with the international coalition are deeply enmeshed in the corruption. They have ties to reconstruction efforts.  And the same insurgents also sell weapons to individuals and companies.

My last question to my friend — as my driver stood outside in the pouring rain — was one that might be better left unasked: then what are we doing here?

Worldfocus contributing blogger “K” — who was with a U.S. Marine Embedded Training Team in Kunar Province between November 2008 and August 2009 — posted an entry this week about his experiences with Afghan villagers who had suffered at the hands of the Taliban. Here’s an excerpt:

The average Afghan has seen a lot of tragedy in his or her life. They usually don’t feel compelled to share stories that are personal in nature, but I do recall one time when it happened. The mission was to visit a particular village, known for having a huge white house. The village was not far up the valley from our base. In fact, we could see the white house from the base, though it would take a good 30 minutes to walk over there.

Afghan women wait outside a market. Photo: Khushbu Shah

Upon getting into the village, we did the usual – looked around at the terrain and figured out how we were going to set up security with our sparse forces (two Marines and perhaps a dozen ANA) before looking around for the village elder to talk to.

We eventually got ourselves set up and found an elder, who invited me, my terp, and the ANA leader inside “The White House” for tea, nuts, and candies. No matter how poor, down and out an Afghan is, they’ll always have some small provisions for guests. It was a pretty gloomy, rainy day and the old fella seemed kind of down, though it’s never easy to really read people when you can’t understand a word they are saying.

Eventually, his nephews, young men in their 20’s, came out and proceeded to show us pictures of their father, who apparently had been the head man in the village, but had been killed by the insurgents just a few months before. At that point, the older gentlemen teared up and had to leave the room. The story was that the Taliban killed him because he had been a powerful figure in the local area, and wasn’t showing enough support to them. It’s those moments where you really realize how alone those people are. They may have had each other, living in a huge house built of stones fitted together like a jigsaw puzzle, but once we left the area that day they were really on their own.

Our base may have been less than a mile away, but we didn’t really know what went on in that village at night. “Protecting the people” in Afghanistan is a tough thing to do.

Writer P.J. Tobia at True/Slant, who lives in Kabul, reacted with extreme skepticism to President Obama’s speech. Tobia helped edit a report filed last month about young, illiterate teens who join Afghan security forces - an account that Afghan officials deny.

After listening to the President’s speech, I’m still not sure what he thinks Afghanistan will look like by the time US forces withdraw in 2011.

Most of those security forces he wants to increase and train are illiterate and undisciplined. Afghan military and police leadership is corrupt, some of them having bought their ranks in order to get in on lucrative bribes from narco-traffickers.

The US and NATO have had eight years to train these men, what could possibly be done in 18 months to seriously professionalize them? Magic?

When the US withdraws from Afghanistan it will leave behind 400,000 well armed men with no education, lousy paychecks (that they sometimes don’t receive), suspect leadership and very few options. This is not a recipe for stability.

Anthony Cordesman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies discusses President Obama’s decision and what a shift in warfare tactics will look like.

Al Jazeera English’s James Bays examines the U.S. decision to send more troops to Afghanistan.

Young girls at the Gudwara Panja Sahib. Photo: Flickr user AlJazeeraEnglish

Worldfocus partner World Pulse is a media enterprise covering global issues through the eyes of women. This post is excerpted from their PulseWire project, an international online forum for women. In it, Nukhbat Malik writes about meeting children scarred by war in the town of Hasan Abdal in northern Punjab, Pakistan, at one of Sikhism’s holiest places.

He is a 13-year-old boy with big green eyes, following me everywhere while I wander around the Gurdwara Panja Sahib, taking pictures. The place is bustling with people of all ages, children running around, old men and women lying in the corridors. This boy appears in front of me when I move towards a quieter corner and looking straight into my eyes, he almost whispers and makes a sign which makes leaves me standing still.

Satish Singh is from Mingora, the largest city in the Swat district of Pakistan’s Northwest Frontier Province. He moved to Gurdwara on April 28th with his parents, three sisters and two brothers. He is the eldest among his siblings. I take his hand and lead him to the stairs. He looks around to make sure that no one is noticing him.

And then he says, ‘Maulana Fazlullah looks like a true hero of a movie. He comes there on a horse, and there are always three other people on horses with him, one at his back and two on each side. I wonder how he became such a dashing person. Though I have never seen his face but his personality is very impressive.’

I am stunned, and I ask him to explain the sign which he made earlier.

He looks around to see if anyone is watching and then with widened eyes says, ‘I saw there were three of them, wearing shalwar kameez. Their faces were wrapped in black cloth, excluding the eyes and they had guns. It was about 2:30 pm and I was coming back from school. It’s the Green Chowk where there are different shops and lots of people. They stopped in front of a shop, grabbed a man, knocked him down and beheaded him.’

‘He was an ordinary man, perhaps some government officer, I still think of him and wonder what his fault was?’

It’s hard for me to keep looking at Satish. Just when I try to move the conversation to a lighter tangent, he says, ‘That was the first time in my life when I ran as fast as I could. I entered my house, went straight to the washroom, threw up and fainted. For next three days I was not able to talk to any one. My mother still asks me what went wrong that day, but I am unable to explain, I am speechless when I think of that day, I am scared.’

‘So you never talked about this with any one?’ I finally asked.

He gives me a false smile and said, ‘What should I say? You know our Veer Ji (teacher) and our parents have strictly prohibited us to say a word about Taliban. If my father finds out about this conversation, he will lock me up or send me to India.’

It’s not just the story of Satish. I have met several children over the past week, all those who have a new identity now known as ‘Internally Displaced Persons’.

These children, regardless of their ages and religion have similar things to talk about: bombings, war, shelling, Taliban, blood, killings and the army.

Shehrbano is a 12-year-old girl. She can’t speak Urdu, but I know she wants to tell me something. I request a man standing beside me in the Jalala Camp of Mardan to ask her in Pashto what it is. Shehrbano looks at me for a second, puts her head down, and says, ‘There was a beheaded man, whose head was placed on his body with a note on it saying, whoever will do something wrong, will get the same punishment, I don’t know what wrongdoings they were talking about.’

Seven-year-old Atif has seen people killed in a suicide bombing, 11-year-old Daud Khan has no idea who is killing whom and 13-year-old Salman wonders when all of this will finish.

I have no answers to these questions. I am unable to imagine what sort of a generation this will be. Fear, terror and anger are written all over these children. They don’t laugh or smile anymore. I smile at them and get back an inquisitive look in return.

- Nukhbat Malik

President Obama at the Ft. Hood memorial service. Photo: Flickr user USarmy

Ambassador S. Azmat Hassan is a former Ambassador of Pakistan to Malaysia, Syria and Morocco and Deputy Permanent Representative of Pakistan to the United Nations. He is currently an adjunct professor at Seton Hall University and is a contributing Worldfocus blogger.

The implications of Major Nidal Malik Hasan’s rampage at Fort Hood continue to excite public scrutiny. The US is no stranger to deranged individuals of different religious persuasions indulging in mass murder in the past.

President Obama, in a moving eulogy to the dead, cautioned against a rush to judgment. The facts would have to be painstaking pieced together before a fair approximation of what motivated Hasan’s dastardly attack on fellow servicemen can be arrived at.

The fact that Hasan was an Army psychiatrist administering to the post traumatic stress syndrome issues faced by returning Army soldiers from Iraq and Afghanistan, added to the puzzling enigma of his act.

It seemed that a healer, trained to mend soldiers broken by the awful physical and psychological traumas inflicted on them by war, had himself cracked under the professional and personal strain he had apparently undergone.

There is little doubt that Hasan had increasingly become a misfit in the Army. Reportedly a loner, he found solace in increasing religiosity. As a Muslim-American, he appeared to be struggling to come to terms with the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.

He had publicly declared that he considered America’s involvement in these wars as a war against Islam. He agonized over whether Islam permitted Muslims to fight Muslims in war. It seems these warning signs were not noticed by his superiors who were about to deploy him to Afghanistan.

If the U.S. Army draws the conclusion that its Muslim soldiers are not to be trusted, this would be a big mistake. Most Muslims soldier and officers have fought bravely in Iraq and Afghanistan. Some have given the supreme sacrifice for their country.

Colin Powell personally knew and attested to the valor of one such Muslim officer who died in Afghanistan. He rests in peace in the Arlington cemetery, an acknowledged hero. The acts of one deranged man cannot and should not sway our military leadership. If we succumb to this attitude how can we trust our Iraqi, Afghani, Pakistani and other Muslim allies?

Instead, it would be better to reform Army procedures to catch its misfits in time. Such persons who cannot be nursed back to mental normality should be weeded out.

I cannot end without commenting on the ease with which weapons can be procured in America. In most first world countries this is not the case. There it is very difficult, if not virtually impossible to get a license for lethal weapons.

With stringent gun control imposed here, it might just be possible to avoid putting guns in the hands of alienated individuals who can wreak havoc on innocent citizens. Otherwise we are probably fated to see a repeat of such horrific incidents in the future. Civil society should take the lead in asking for reforms of the current gun laws.

When I served in Malaysia two decades ago, I noticed that it was a crime punishable by death to own an unlicensed revolver. Even owning bullets attracted heavy punishment. Crimes such as the recent rampage are unknown in Malaysia. They are also virtually unknown in Europe, although there are plenty of misfits in these countries.

Think about it.

- Amb. S. Azmat Hassan

Ahmad Kamal, a Pakistani diplomat for 40 years and Pakistan’s former ambassador to the United Nations, joins Martin Savidge to discuss Pakistan’s war against Islamic militants and whether the U.S. is paying enough attention to Afghanistan’s neighbor.

Kamal Hyder of Al Jazeera English reports from Pakistan on the deteriorating security situation.

The target was the Indian embassy, and once again, the Taliban claimed responsibility.

Daniel Markey, a senior fellow for India, Pakistan and South Asia at the Council on Foreign Relations, joins Daljit Dhaliwal to discuss Afghanistan’s importance to India and the effect of the bombing on the U.S. mission in Afghanistan.

Wednesday marks the eighth anniversary of the U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan.

The aim was to defeat the Taliban and deny al Qaeda a home base after the September 11 attacks. But today, the Taliban are resurgent, the war has become increasingly deadly for America and its allies, and Osama bin Laden remains a free man. The Afghanistan conflict has gone on longer than anyone imagined it would.

For his part, President Obama says he will not substantially reduce the number of troops in Afghanistan, nor change the mission. But it remains to be seen if he will expand the the American military presence beyond the 68,000 troops already committed as the war becomes increasingly unpopular.

After eight years of war in Afghanistan, are the United States and the world safer from terrorism?

Tell us what you think in the comments section below. Please remember to be respectful and on-point in your comments. Malicious or offensive comments will be deleted and repeat offenders will be banned.

Headline from an English-language Russian news site.

Worldfocus producer Christine Kiernan writes about the reaction to the recently-released report on the Russia-Georgia war.

This week, the European Union released its long-awaited report on the five-day-war that broke out between Russia and Georgia in August 2008. The conclusions — the result of a ten-month-long mission to investigate the conflict’s origins led by Swiss diplomat Heidi Tagliavini — were mixed. The report cites as the immediate cause “the shelling by Georgian forces of the capital of the secessionist province of South Ossetia, Tskhinvali, on Aug. 7.”

However, it also acknowledges that Russia had made preparations for armed hostilities by moving paramilitary forces into the Russian-backed republic, and that the shelling was only the “culminating point of a long period of increasing tensions, provocations, and incidents.” The report concludes that all sides violated international humanitarian and human rights laws and warns that the conflict in Georgia continues to threaten peace in the region.

Not surprisingly, both Russia and Georgia seemed to interpret the report’s findings in their own favor. Russian officialdom and media expressed satisfaction, more or less, over the commission’s findings, highlighting as the main conclusion the fact that Georgia started the war. The Russian press secretary said “we can only welcome the said conclusion.”

A headline in the “Gazeta” newspaper read: “The Russian Kremlin and Ministry of Defense welcomed the EU commission’s conclusion that Georgia began the war in South Ossetia.” The article noted that Russia’s ambassador to the European Commission, Vladimir Chizhov, deemed the report  “Pro-Russian.” Russia’s ambassador to NATO, Dmitry Rogozin, said it was about time the truth came out; the Echo Moscow radio station quoted him as saying Western politicians owed Russia an apology.

You can read an official reaction on the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs’ Web site. There is little mention of the finding of Russian responsibility for ethnic cleansing and of disproportionate use of force by the Russian side, or the report’s refusal to recognize South Ossetia and Abkhazia as independent entities.

My ability to interpret Georgian reaction is limited. But I did come across an English-language version of an official statement issued by the Georgian government. The Georgian government’s takeaway: “Almost all of the facts in the report confirm the Georgian version of events.” The government’s statement failed to mention that the EU mission put responsibility for the immediate commencement of shelling on Georgia. Instead, it stressed the report’s finding that Georgian civilians and peacekeepers were under attack, on Georgian soil, before August 7, and cited the “most important fact documented by the Commission [...] that regular armed Russian forces and mercenaries illegally crossed into Georgia before August 8, 2009.”

Will the report’s release change anything? Probably not. Both Russia and Georgia will continue to adhere to their own version of events and blame the other side. My main takeaway comes from an editorial written by mission-head Tagliavini and published in Wednesday’s New York Times. In it, she focuses not on “whodunit;” instead, she raises the question of what responsibility the international community bears for failing to prevent the conflict. Are there actions Georgia’s and Russia’s neighbors could have taken to avoid the escalation of tensions? Did the involvement of outside powers harden positions, as Tagliavini claims, rather than build common ground? What is the role of the international community at large in deterring conflicts that arise between nation-states? Perhaps it is questions like these that merit further investigation.

- Christine Kiernan

Worldfocus special correspondent Martin Himel reports from Israel.

For more:

• Read Martin Himel’s blog: Heroes, Hollywood and making it through the day
• Read commentary from a Jerusalem film scholar: Israeli cinema: Growing up

Abu Absal Shurrab stood in front of his red jeep  and waved energetically when he saw me. I walked towards him. “Salaam aleikum!” we greeted each other warmly, and Abu Absal indicated that I should get into the jeep.

Abu Absal stands next to the car that he and his sons were shot in.

My heart stopped momentarily as he stepped out of the way and the vehicle became fully visible. The windshield was splattered with bullet holes. This was the car Abu Absal was driving the day he was shot and his sons, Kassab and Ibrahim, were killed.

I climbed inside the passenger seat, trying to discreetly count the bullet holes as Abu Absal guided the car onto the road. Twenty that I could see, including the semi-shattered rear-view mirror. Abu Absal noticed my preoccupation.

“Kassab was sitting exactly where you are now,” he told me. “Ibrahim was in the back seat, directly behind him. When the shooting started, I shouted for them to crouch down low. But the bullets went through the front of the car. I tried to replace the windshield, but because of the siege, there is no glass available anywhere in Gaza Strip.”

The final days of 2008 and the first weeks of 2009 saw a large-scale Israeli military bombardment and invasion of Gaza Strip. Israel termed the incursion “Operation Cast Lead,” saying it was intended to protect the citizens of the southern community of Sderot, 24 of whom had been killed by Palestinian rocket fire from Gaza over the past eight years.

According to a recently released report by the Israeli human rights organization B’tselem, 1,387 Palestinians were killed during the 22-day attack, over half of them civilians, including more than 300 children. Several thousand more innocent people were injured, more than 3,000 homes were destroyed and 20,000 were damaged. United Nations schools, clinics and other humanitarian facilities were bombed.

On January 16, 2009, towards the end of the onslaught, I received an email with the horrifying subject line:

“Help me save my dad’s life.”

It was from Amer Shurrab. I’ve known Amer for 10 years, since he was 14 years old. Amer is from Khan Yunis, Gaza, but had recently graduated from Middlebury College and had just moved to Washington, D.C.

With dread, I opened the email. Amer wrote:

“My father’s car was bombed today, he was in it with two of my brothers. My older brother 27 was killed while my dad 64 and my little brother 17 have been bleeding for over 14 hours and Israeli troops blocking ambulances access.  Please contact any media outlets, your congressmen, senators, any international organizations and try to get them help.”

Several hours later, I got another email from Amer with more details about the incident and an update. The morning of the attack, his father and brothers had gone to check on their farm during the daily three-hour humanitarian “ceasefire.” On their way home, his father’s red jeep was bombarded by a hail of bullets from IDF troops who had commandeered a house approximately fifty meters away. Amer’s older brother, Kassab, was shot in the chest and stomach 18 times and died on the spot. His father was shot in the arm and his younger brother, Ibrahim, was shot below the knee.

Abu Absal shouted to the soldiers that he and his sons needed medical attention. They shouted back for him to call an ambulance. He did, via cell phone, but was told by the Red Crescent that the Israeli army would not permit them access. Abu Absal managed to contact media and human rights groups, who launched an immediate campaign to pressure the army to allow medical care to reach the wounded civilians. Nearly 24 hours later, the IDF permitted an ambulance to reach Abu Absal and his sons. By then it was too late for Amer’s younger brother. Ibrahim had already bled to death.

Abu Absal parked the jeep outside an apartment building in Khan Yunis. “Here’s where we live,” he told me. “Any time you are in Gaza, you should make this your home!” We climbed the steps and entered. Abu Absal introduced me cheerfully to his wife and his two daughters. Heaviness and grief was palpable in the home, especially in the eyes of Amer’s mother and sisters. Nevertheless, Abu Absal was determined that my visit be an occasion for happiness. He instructed me to sit in an easy chair, next to his.

“We must speak of many things!” Abu Absal said brightly. “Your visit is like a breeze of fresh air to the family. Only…” He leaned towards me and adopted the tone of a fatherly scolding. “You are not staying long enough! So early tomorrow morning we will visit the farm, before you have to return to Gaza City!”

“Do you go to the farm often?” I asked his university-aged daughter, hoping to engage her in the conversation.

“Not really,” she replied, barely making eye contact.

“The girls no longer like the farm,” Abu Absal explained. “They blame the farm for the death of their brothers. After all, if we hadn’t gone that morning…” He didn’t complete the sentence.

Abu Absal shows off his farm.

The sun was just beginning to rise the next morning when Abu Absal and I climbed back into his battered jeep.  The sandy roads of Khan Yunis were bathed in golden light and early morning silence. We turned off the main road after passing the European Hospital. Less than a minute later, we approached an intersection. Abu Absal slowed down. “This was where they were killed,” he said. “You see that brown house?” he pointed. “That’s where the soldiers shot from. I didn’t know they were there. If I had known, I could have taken another route…”

Amer had told me how close the hospital was to the scene of the killings, but seeing it for myself felt like a punch in my gut. Kassab could not have been helped, but Abu Absal and Ibrahim, even with their injuries, could have made it there, walking or crawling or both. But the soldiers had threatened to shoot them if they moved.

Ten minutes later, Abu Absal was giving me a tour of the farm, pointing out with love and devotion each fig and citrus tree, every pepper, the collection of bee hives. From the window of the elevated farm house, he asked me if I could see the fence and the military tower in the distance. I could. “That’s the border with Israel,” he told me. “I watched dozens of tanks roll into Gaza from there. I must guard the farm every day to make sure no one uses it to launch rockets. I don’t want the Israelis to have any excuse to destroy my farm.”

The destruction was not always related to rocket fire. The day before, I had filmed the remains of a school bombed by fighter jets, a clinic that had been shelled and a residential neighborhood reduced to rubble. I had also seen a mosque sprayed with bullets from a recent shootout between Hamas and an Islamic militant group. But in the midst of this destruction, I also witnessed resilience and ingenuity. I saw tent-dwellers whose homes were destroyed tap into a main power line, providing their families with electricity. I watched a youth soccer tournament and broke the Ramadan fast with families at sundown. Though people were going about their daily lives, loss and pain in Gaza still run very deep.

Abu Absal tenderly showed me his baby eggplants nestled in rich soil. He offered me a ripe pomegranate dangling temptingly off a tree. A warm light glowed in his eyes.

“Your farm is beautiful,” I said, hoping my appreciation would further boost his spirits.

A cloud passed over Abu Absal’s face. He fingered the rubbery leaves of his olive tree silently. Finally he spoke, echoing, it seemed to me, the sentiment of thousands of Gazan civilians. Those who lost loved ones, their homes, their schools. Those who saw crushed in front of their eyes whatever hope they still nurtured, whatever shards of a normal life they had managed to preserve throughout decades of occupation and years of escalating violence.

“It is very beautiful here indeed. But the beauty means nothing since my sons are gone.”

- Jen Marlowe

The views expressed by contributing bloggers do not reflect the views of Worldfocus or its partners.

Afghanistan’s President Hamid Karzai defended the integrity of the country’s presidential election on Thursday. He also admitted for the first time that there was fraud by government officials who support him, but said there was fraud as well by those supporting his main opponent.

The final but uncertified count gives Karzai more than 54 percent, but European election observers say about one-third of the votes were suspicious and should be examined for fraud. Karzai called on them to respect the votes of the Afghan people.

Should the U.S. demand a recount or accept the results?

Tell what you think in the comments section below. Please remember to be respectful and on-point in your comments. Malicious or offensive comments will be deleted and repeat offenders will be banned.

As the goals and the strategy are debated in coming weeks, the chairman of the joint chiefs — the top U.S. officer — told Congress on Tuesday that more U.S. forces in Afghanistan are probably required.

But Afghanistan is not the only battleground in the U.S. fight against extremists and terrorism. There have also been developments in Pakistan and Somalia.

Is the United States being aggressive enough — or too aggressive — in its efforts to combat international terrorism?

Tell us what you think in the comments section below.

Juan Carlos Zarate, a senior advisor on terrorism at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, joins Daljit Dhaliwal to discuss strategies in the fight against terrorism. He says that in some cases, the Obama administration has actually been more aggressive than the Bush administration in fighting the so-called war on terror.