Ann Jones, a writer, photographer, and lifelong advocate for civil rights, and women rights told the Stony Brook students with confidence that United States should withdraw it’s army from Afghanistan immediately.
Ann Jones, who has lived in Afghanistan for four years as a humanitarian volunteer after September 11, came to Stony Brook University and spoke at the Tabler arts center on Wednesday March 11, for the provost’s lecture series.
Jones spole about the role of invasion and occupation of Afghanistan for the provosts lecture series and her new book “Kabul in Winter: Life Without Peace in Afghanistan,” where she wrote about her experience in Afghanistan.
The show began with Allegra De-Laurentiis, the Faculty director of Global Studies , who gave a brief speech about significance of women and Jones’s work in Afghanistan.
De-Laurentiis mentioned that Jones was able to live with real people and had the inside sights to everyday life. She also mentioned that Jones has worked as an English Teacher for Afghan high schools and worked for Non-Government Organization, or NGO, to help Afghan people.
Ann Jones began her speech by talking about long war the United States has been involved in since September 11th. According to Jones, this war is expected to last at least 50 years.
“United Stated has been involved in every war since World War II,” Jones said as she reminded the audience that we are paying for the war.
“After the 1941 World War, America faced a global enemy that is out to get us,” She said While mentioning the Cold War with Soviet Union. “United States didn’t disarm its military since then,” she added.
“Our National security and military budget are much larger than many countries,” Jones said with concern.
In between the long wars, like the war on terror, we have short wars as Jones has explained. Some of the short wars include the war in Afghanistan and war in Iraq.
According to Jones, so much of what is going on is secret to American public. America’s purpose on going to war was to capture Osama Bin Laden. However, in Jones’ point view this is a false reason. “United States went to war to pursue the natural resources such as oil,” she said.
“War in Afghanistan was only way the Bush Administration could later declare war on Iraq,” She said. “The Bush Administration gave us false enterprise, their intentions were not real,” she added.
“Afghans are profiting on the rich,” she said on the corruption that is going on in Afghanistan. The veteran officers of U.S. army are also said to be involved in the corruption as Jones explained.
“Many people from congress also worry about terrible corruption in Washington,” Jones said. “In Washington, Inspector General Corporations and private companies are scramming,” she said.
Media is also said to be deceived, according to Jones, when talked about public not getting to know everything that is going on in Afghanistan and Iraq.
When asked about if Afghanistan will ever have peace, she didn’t know what to say. “I don’t know, the situation has been terrible all along; women have already been betrayed, women of my colleagues have been kidnapped and beaten,” she said. “The threat of civil war has always been there.”
To sum up her speech, Jones said, “get the army out of Afghanistan.”
She mentioned that Afghans work themselves very well except for the fundamentalists and the fact that they belong to a poor country. She however insisted that NGO should continue to work for Afghanistan.
