The U.S. military's mission in Afghanistan is more often about helping farmers and teachers than firefights with the Taliban. That gives people at home, like Royse City plastics maker John Stettler, a way to support the war by helping the military help the Afghans. Stettler put up $10,000 this year to buy radios for villagers in Afghanistan's Helmand province. A battalion of U.S. Marines is handing out these solar and hand-crank radios in places where there is no electricity. "If we send Americans to risk their lives in other countries, it's important for civilians to do their part," said Stettler, 53. "It's a citizen's duty."
Stettler's $10,000 was a challenge grant given to Spirit of America, a Los Angeles charity. Jim Hake, founder of Spirit of America, asked Stettler and other donors to respond after he got an appeal for radios from the 3rd Battalion of the 1st Marine Division in Garmsir. The appeal raised $30,000 that's being spent on 3,000 radios shipped directly to the Marines in Afghanistan. "Broadly speaking, we help the troops help the local people," Hake said. "From our perspective, by providing radios, we're helping to open families and villages to outside information and music as well. From the Marine Corps' perspective, it also opens villages to outside information and helps them combat Taliban propaganda." Hake said Brig. Gen. Larry Nicholson, who led the Marine forces into Helmand province last year, told him: "We spend 10 percent of our time hunting and 90 percent of our time helping." U.S. generals running the war in Afghanistan say information is one of the key battlefields, and radio is the medium both sides use in this fight. Most Afghans live in small villages, cannot read or write, and don't have electricity. Their news comes over the radio. Taliban stations Media surveys in Afghanistan by aid groups have found most villages have had radios since U.S. forces overthrew the Taliban almost nine years ago. But the radio in the tea shop or mosque, powered by a small generator or a car battery, could be tuned by a Taliban sympathizer to a Taliban station. Giving families their own radios lets them listen to something else. So far this year, U.S. forces and their allies have handed out 45,000 radios - and put on-air many of their own radio stations. "We have three radio stations set up on combat outposts, with a fourth station coming in the next couple of weeks," Lt. Col. Ben Watson, the 3rd Battalion's commanding officer, wrote in an e-mail from Garmsir. Watson explained that the stations are manned by two local Afghan DJs and Marines working with translators. They offer a mix of programming, including local leaders supporting the government, music and news. "We encourage locals to write in or tell our patrols what they like and don't like about the programming so that we can constantly improve," he wrote. Scores of radio stations are operating in Afghanistan and sending signals from across the border in Pakistan. The Afghan government, Britain's BBC and the U.S. government's Voice of America broadcast nationwide. Voice of America also sends FM and short-wave signals into the tribal regions of Pakistan across the Afghan border - an area rich in Taliban radio operations as well, according to a State Department inspector general's report released last year. "The Taliban operate a large number of unlicensed FM transmitters throughout the region," the report found. "While they have limited range, these 'rogue' stations regularly broadcast propaganda, including frequent claims for terrorist actions carried out by the Taliban." Media groups operating in Afghanistan say villagers are skeptical of the Afghan government's broadcasts and prefer programs that relate information about their local area. That's where the Taliban and the U.S. military try to operate. 'First with the truth' Soon after the war started, the U.S. Agency for International Development sent 30,000 radios to Afghanistan, but U.S. AID workers in Kabul say that effort has ended. Voice of America is distributing 20,000 more radios. Gen. David Petraeus, commander of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan, issued guidelines in August that urge his forces to "fight the information war aggressively." "Be first with the truth," the guidelines read. "Beat the insurgents and malignant actors to the headlines." But supplies aren't always in place when they're needed, which is why Watson turned to Spirit of America. "We are at the end of a long and challenging logistics pipeline out here, and we don't get everything we want just as fast as we'd like it," Watson wrote. "SOA [Spirit of America] helps immensely to supplement the number of hand-crank, solar-powered radios we get through military channels in order to allow us to supply to the local population so they can listen to our radio stations. Their support is a huge help." Some radios are both hand-crank and solar. Stettler said he's been seeking ways to support U.S. forces in Iraq and Afghanistan since 9/11. He said he worries that Americans are losing interest in the conflict in Afghanistan. "There seems to be a big drop-off in support domestically," he said. "A lot of what needs to be done over there are things American citizens can do, not by going there, but just by supporting people who are going over there do these things."(Dallas news) ---[Start Commercial]--------------------- Order your WRTH 2009: http://www.hard-core-dx.com/redirect2.php?id=wrth2009 ---[End Commercial]----------------------- ________________________________________ Hard-Core-DX mailing list [email protected] http://montreal.kotalampi.com/mailman/listinfo/hard-core-dx http://www.hard-core-dx.com/ _______________________________________________ THE INFORMATION IN THIS ARTICLE IS FREE. It may be copied, distributed and/or modified under the conditions set down in the Design Science License published by Michael Stutz at http://www.gnu.org/licenses/dsl.html
