matthew hoh
GRITtv: Matthew Hoh and Ann Jones: Real Peace for Afghanistan
"Women's rights are nothing but human rights when women exercise them," notes Ann Jones, but Afghanistan has never been big on women's rights. Still, as highly-touted negotiations continue between Taliban representatives and the Karzai government, where are the women? Can real peace come when it's negotiated without women when, Matthew Hoh notes, the population of the country between the ages of 20 and 45 is four to one women to men? Jones is the author most recently of War Is Not Over When It's Over: Women Speak Out from the Ruins of War, and Hoh was the first American official to resign in protest over the conduct of the war in Afghanistan and now directs the Afghanistan Study Group. They join Laura for a discussion of what real peace in Afghanistan would have to entail.
Email this pageGRITtv: October 21, 2010
"The one thing I couldn't live without in Iraq was my own humanity," says Iraq veteran Ethan McCord, who came home from dropping his children off at school to find a video of himself rescuing an child from a bombed-out van. That was the now-infamous Wikileaks video, and McCord has been collecting his own video and stories from his fellow veterans, speaking out about what he saw at war and what his friends lived through.McCord joins Laura in studio for a discussion of the suppression of more video from WikiLeaks, the supposed end of the war in Iraq, and the way talking about the war helps him to heal."Women's rights are nothing but human rights when women exercise them," notes Ann Jones, but Afghanistan has never been big on women's rights. Still, as highly-touted negotiations continue between Taliban representatives and the Karzai government, where are the women? Can real peace come when it's negotiated without women when, Matthew Hoh notes, the population of the country between the ages of 20 and 45 is four to one women to men?Jones is the author most recently of War Is Not Over When It's Over: Women Speak Out from the Ruins of War, and Hoh was the first American official to resign in protest over the conduct of the war in Afghanistan and now directs the Afghanistan Study Group. They join Laura for a discussion of what real peace in Afghanistan would have to entail.Finally, the election season continues to get ever more ridiculous, and Laura has to ask: who's profiting?
"Democracy Now!': Mon. July 26 2010
It’s one of the biggest leaks in US military history. More than 90,000 internal records of US military actions in Afghanistan over the past six years have been published by the whistleblower website WikiLeaks. The documents provide a devastating portrait of the war in Afghanistan, revealing how coalition forces have killed hundreds of civilians in unreported incidents, how a secret black ops special forces unit hunts down targets for assassination or detention without trial, how Taliban attacks have soared and how Pakistan is fueling the insurgency. We host a roundtable discussion with independent British journalist Stephen Grey, Pentagon Papers whistleblower, Daniel Ellsberg, former State Department official in Afghanistan, Matthew Hoh, independent journalist Rick Rowley and investigative historian Gareth Porter. "Democracy Now!" is a daily independent newshour.
"Democracy Now!": Thurs. July 1 2010
Michael Hastings of Rolling Stone talks about his story that brought down Gen. McChrystal and exposed the widening disputes behind the U.S. debacle in Afghanistan; Rep. John Conyers and the Out of Afghanistan Caucus oppose the Obama Administration’s $33B escalation of the Afghan war; Former marine and state department official Matthew Hoh is the first U.S. official to resign over the Afghan war. "Democracy Now!" is a daily independent newshour.
GRITtv: Rethink Afghanistan: Eikenberry Memos
U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan Karl Eikenberry cabled his concerns about a troop increase to Obama months ago, and the New York Times recently released the full text of the memos. In this video from Brave New Films' Rethink Afghanistan series, Daniel Ellsberg, Matthew Hoh, and other analysts look at Eikenberry's words and explain their concerns.
GRITtv: Afghanistan: Soviet Lesson Not Learned
Christmas Eve, 2009, was the 30th anniversary of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and the 3000th day of the U.S. occupation of the country. Matthew Hoh and Congressman Eric Massa are joined in this video by Soviet journalists and analysts discussing the lesson learned too late by their country: occupying Afghanistan breeds more, stronger, resistance. Thanks to Brave New Films for the clip.
GRITtv: Matthew Hoh: I Submit My Resignation
Matthew Hoh was the first US civilian official to resign in protest over the conduct of the war in Afghanistan. The Washington Post called him "exactly the kind of smart civil-military hybrid the administration was looking for to help expand its development efforts." In this video from Brave New Films, Hoh reads his letter of resignation and explains why he decided to make a public statement. "The people that are fighting us there are fighting because they're occupied," he says of Afghanistan.
GRITtv: Veterans Speak Out on Afghanistan
On Tuesday, John Nichols told us that the dire jobs situation in the U.S. has had an effect on the debate surrounding escalation in Afghanistan and that the administration is actually meeting with peace groups for the first time to discuss alternate plans. Brave New Films' Rethink Afghanistan explores the problems there and proposes peaceful and diplomatic solutions and a responsible exit strategy. With this video, they bring together U.S. military veterans, including Matthew Hoh, to ask Obama not to send more troops to continue a war that is on its way to being America's longest in history.
