Word: afghanistan
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Every once in a while evil shows up and has to be defeated for the benefit of mankind, no matter what the cost. Germany's Nazis were such evil. Maybe Iran will be some day. But neither Iraq nor Afghanistan qualify. Mr. Blair is wrong. Joerg Boese, BERGEN, GERMANY
...Weekend in Kabul, Afghanistan, April 1978 We turn out from the American School's Little League game, straight into a line of tanks. "It's a parade!" says my mother gaily, hoping we children won't notice that the soldiers have their guns cocked. That night, as Soviet-made MiGs strafe the city, our gardener and cleaner Mir Ali patrols the garden with an ax and a plastic baseball bat. The next day, the radio proclaims the birth of the People's Republic of Afghanistan. Tanks are wreathed in flowers, "doubtless following the prescription of some revolutionary handbook," my father...
...code from tribal law, but as the summer wears on, the work dries up. The ex-minister remains in jail. Soviet advisers hustle through the hallways. Colleagues politely cancel meetings. My parents remain calm, hoping that the new regime might tackle the poverty, illiteracy and sexism they see blighting Afghanistan. "Perhaps," says my mother, "a good dose of socialism is just what this country needs...
...other man is Salim Hamdan, who had been recruited to work for al-Qaeda by Jandal, his brother-in-law. Hamdan was captured by U.S. forces in Afghanistan in late 2001 and sent to Guantanamo Bay, where he was held for seven years. He was released last January and returned to Yemen. "I wanted to look at two people who worked for bin Laden - one who was low-level, Hamdan, [and] the other [who] was much closer," the film's New York-based director, Laura Poitras, tells TIME. (See the 100 best movies of all time...
...focus when a Yemeni reporter introduced her to Jandal. The former bodyguard seems like a contradiction in the film: in one scene, he describes how he was shocked to hear about the 9/11 attacks, but in another, he reveals that he had met many of the hijackers in Afghanistan while he was working for bin Laden. He also says he feels responsible and guilty for the imprisonment of his brother-in-law, who does not appear in the film. (Excerpts from his letters from Guantanamo are read aloud.) "When [Jandal] was younger, he felt taking up arms was justified...