Pakistan/Iraq: Troubled Land
Pakistan: September 2001 to December 2001.
Terrorists attack the U.S. killing thousands. Pakistan, the cooperative neighbor, becomes the staging ground for the U.S. operation.
Refugee camps swell with people who are trying to escape another war, their lives already filled with two decades of fighting. Many leave their homeland of Afghanistan with little and arrive with almost nothing.
Anti-American feelings are displayed daily by tens of thousands of protesters who gather in the city streets of Pakistan. At some, people are killed.
Pakistan has a population of 140 million with an illiteracy rate of 40 percent. Drugs, crime and unemployment fill in the equation which account for many of the problems facing the people of this country who become caught in the struggle and strife.
Iraq: March 2003 to July 2003
After three weeks of heavy bombing in Iraq, the Bush adminstration declared the fighting over. The war was won. The preconceived idea that Iraqis would be working with American servicemen and women to rebuild their worn-torn country couldn’t have been further from the truth.
The reality was the country was in chaos, it’s people shaking clenched fists at Americans, not welcoming them with open arms.
In one correspondence to the newspaper, Tobia wrote: “You see the pain, hear the sorrow and smell the trace of death, and it is then that you realize it is time to learn from what you have witnessed. Everything seems to be fighting everything in Iraq. There are not enough reasons to justify this kind of suffering. These are everyday people who have been affected by war and have been forced to deal with its
consequences. I think of hardend faces, deeply creased and worn beyond their years. Healing will not come easy.”
“People in need don't care about philosophy. What people care about is relief, and hope for a future devoid of fear that has kept the 24 million people of this country in check for 35 years.”
“Those that suffer the most in war and conflict are those who are least involved."
