I have felt inspired to revisit Afghanistan and 911. I will post this video. I can’t verify the person who created it. Not sure who he is. He swears in the film which mirrors the likely sentiment of many trying to make sense of wars that have cover stories fed to the public as victory when they repeat the same mistakes over and over.
I sat amongst the intelligence community not so much by design but by chance when I felt to listen to the AFP raids on the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (was Commission). I had no knowledge of this community but noted a Home Affairs secretary referred to brothers and sisters (secret society). I stood out like a sore thumb at this public inquiry as very few from the public were there. I took notes instinctively with no plan of what to do with my notes but an instinct to understand more.
The lack of ability of the public to know what the intelligence community do in their name and the ability of this community to create endless false flag operations to create fear, to cause disruption and to justify more funding is in their minds what freedom is about. In truth, real freedom is acting from our inner truth, as only truth sets all free. This is why whistle-blowers turn up as conscience moves them (not morals) to disclosure what they know is causing harm. That is a human instinct so many seem detached from these days in the name of profit.
I can’t verify the information in the film but am aware of Hekmatya Gulbadin as I was close to an Afghan family and was given their version of events. This was a country that had known modernity in the 1970s, it was located on the silk route and consisted of tribes, the largest percentage were Pashtuns. They did not speak arabic but pashtun, they were closer to persian. The Saudi Arabian desire to expand Wahhabism is why women were being restricted, controlled and stoned to death in a culture that’s roots were closer to Zorosastrianism and Persia. That were not shiite muslims but sunni which is a different sect to the Saudi’s.
https://culturalatlas.sbs.com.au/afghan-culture/afghan-culture-religionhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zoroastrianism’
Before I post the videos below I want to share my own experience of Afghans. What I experienced was an extremely loving people. An Afghan mother would always ask how I was. They feel bonds with you that are lifelong. I observed an Afghan man smiling at people and unaware of the negative discrimination he sometimes experienced as he doesn’t see that way. He would simply smile or wave or allow. This was a boy who grew up with Russian helicopter gunships attacking his people, his own father was murdered and he witnessed murders as target practice and cruelty on a scale we can’t imagine.
Yet despite his own trauma he was gentle, kind and socially aware. He had a thousand friends in Kabul that were indeed friends. He provided me with insight into this conflict. When he met me he didn’t believe in peace but he said through me he could believe.
I am a peacemaker so it was likely no mistake I met him. I showed him economics, my culture and taught him English and he shared with me his experience, his culture and family. He, without knowing it, was a natural peacemaker and not living in his ‘head’ or the past. He never saw himself as a victim. He cared deeply about his family who were split up due to conflict. He didn’t desire revenge or to hurt anyone. He said he respected the Russian people and felt they were good people. He cared about the Americans as well. This, despite the fact, their governments were attacking his people, torturing them and using puppet leaders to force doctrines onto them.
His courage came from a place of no fear of death but not in the sense of religion, it was more he had seen a lot of death and didn’t fear it. He told me he walked in a mine field ahead of other men as they had families. He naturally would risk his life for others so they didn’t suffer. He had a simple kindness that was courageous but from a base of gentleness as strength not guns. He even spent time with the Mujahadeen but never shot anyone. He shot over their heads as he saw their mothers in their eyes. He didn’t want their mother’s to suffer. I didn’t see revenge in him at all. Yet he was clear about the war lords and foreign interventions. Yet he was not political or seeking revenge. I had never met a man like this.
His people suffered incredibly as these confused males from other countries entered their country out of greed, selfishness, ignorance and false notions of a higher good to ‘stop terrorism’ and remove the ‘Russians’. The power brokers accessing funding to the tune of $2 trillion dollars (Treasury’s) with an estimated 4.7 million people dying over 18 years. There was clearly no feeling in the leaders for their direct impact on the people and world peace.
I reflected on my own country and how we are filled with fears, we have few friends, our communities and families are divided and breaking down, we are fed constantly on fearful images and disinformation by the very sponsors of the violence of what we call ‘war’ designed to fuel conflict. Those targeted are the civilians across the world. This is left unquestioned.
It has been said by men that empires come to die in Afghanistan. My hope is that the sponsors/funders of pathological violence come to Afghanistan to awaken. In 2025 the truth is going to be more visible.
Some are amazed to learn that the Afghans actually will protect anyone that asks for refuge in their home. It is a custom. I went looking for exact definitions but felt not to include them as I can’t be sure. The telling of this custom to me was by an Afghan. Even if a murder or rapist of a family member asked for refuge the family cannot say no, they will give the person shelter. The irony that comes to me now is that Australia had many Afghan refugees who were incarcerated in jails in Australia and Manus/Christmas/Nauru islands where they were treated with cruelty. I met some directly in a maximum security prison in Melbourne. They were treated as prisoners not people fleeing persecution. We have much to re-member. I was just sent an email now where the idea of taking people in was reiterated but in the indigenous tribes:
“I am enjoying my time in Wilcannia, which is really special with the Barkindji people, really salt of the earth and often misunderstood by so many others. And there is no homelessness in town, as the culture is to always take people in, no matter how full houses get. So different from the cities! Well, I am not a city person, as I grew up on a farm.”
Yet had those very cruel jailers and sponsors sought refuge from the Afghans they would have granted it without question and protected them, that is what honour does, that is what humanity looks like when it is natural. It doesn’t create “illegal immigration” by changing the physical boundaries of the country to avoid the 1951 Refugee Convention (criminalise them) where Australia is a signatory and promised to take in refugees. It is their honour system which so few understand with all their materialism, base values and greed in a constant search of identity and self worth. Soldiers speak of honour but do not know the real meaning behind it. Chivalry is another where you protect women and children. You don’t drop huge bombs that obliterate bystanders where there are no injured as all are murdered for one person. That is the very craziness that strategic planners think is military planning. It is murdering innocent civilians.
I saw a confidence (inner security) in Afghans and a sophisticated hospitality (social relatedness) that was warm and welcoming. Never would you visit and not be offered food or drink. They make sure you are not alone. They will sit with you and keep you company. They play music so you feel happy. The guest is treated with honour and respect. In Australia today you may be lucky to get offered a coffee as the younger generations have lost this art due to busy lives, restaurants and American media. In my culture we judge each other very quickly, we think relating is thinking the same ideas rather than spending time to get to know a person accepting them as they are and treating them as a guest and friend.
The poorest country in the world was targeted in the wars to create ‘terror’ and attack enemies created by intelligence communities in service to profits (greed), power brokers who were faceless and without an awareness of what honour truly is. They may market a higher principle but they don’t get it. I believe those who do not know honour and peace came to learn about the real power of love and loyalty which is deeply felt in these tribal communities and was the very strength that would die for families rather than become enslaved by those who do not know peace.
This is not to glorify the Afghans without an awareness of their own warlords, as they too succumbed to power and swapped sides when it suited them. This is about the real people of Afghanistan I had the privilege to meet and get to know. I can’t speak for all of them but I gained insights.
The Charlie Wilson’s War critique video below discusses the heroin trade but not child trafficking I note. Heroin/drugs are used to raise billions without any backward glance at the lives destroyed. The same would apply to ICE and other opioids all done for the power of money as a false freedom.
Charlie Wilson at the end of the film discusses that nearly half the country were under 14 (children), imagine how many families were destroyed? Imagine the suffering of these children and their vulnerability to those who use children for their own gratification, again, unable to connect to real felt suffering and loss. This lack of duty of care left Afghan children vulnerable to religious indoctrination (madrasses), addiction, human trafficking and pedophilia. The interest is in not empowering them.
Most people don’t know that the Taliban arose out of the madrasas in North Peshawar (Pakistan) and taught the Quran in Arabic when they are Pashtun speakers. They were mind controlled. This is how innocent children were weaponised using extreme Islam (Shiite) religion by Saudi Arabia and believing they were purifying people in the name of Allah. I don’t feel to go into the religious politics but more to look at a tragedy of a culture that were here to teach us humility and kindness. Human rights is not just a list of ideals on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, it is the right to be human and to be treated in a way that is respectful and honouring of that difference, culture, gender and situation. It is to learn to love and respect all people. That is something we naturally do as children until the prejudices of adults are drilled into them. Our nature is to love each other.
From some of the footage I’ve seen over the years some scenes stands out where an elderly Afghan man had his family murdered by British soldiers. I watched as the British soldier gives him a wad of money as if this is compensation for the murder of innocent people. He felt bad/guilty, as do many soldiers as it is not their nature to kill despite popular gaming and movies. I met some soldiers through Rotary who told me of being haunted by the killing of children, unable to forgive themselves.
So there are many casualties to war which is the unquestioned mind (obey orders) that commits crimes for some benefit. We are starting to learn that this pronouncements of the ‘common good’ is just propaganda and has nothing to do with a greater good instead it is used to justifies war (legal murder). The war is within arises out of confusion and a long line of false teachings in search of ‘feeling good’ about what ‘feels bad’.
Yet until these men face themselves and make peace within they will continue to repeat the mistakes of other men who taught war is peace. It never was and never will be. Peace is self acceptance, peace is facing the dark, facing challenges with honour, peace is respect, peace is learning other cultures, peace is seeing yourself in the other and peace realises that the real abundance is to trust life.
What I have found in my homeless capacity without income is that the honour I feel is to not ask others for help. It is not to accept anything from anyone unless it comes from genuine love (truth). I trust that what I have is what I need. I trust that I am not in control of life but watch it unfold. I trust there are no mistakes and that I must have the courage to face life without violence or victimhood. Some may see this as vulnerability but I see it as courage and stepping off the cliff of what I know to simply allow and see what happens. I am working on not believing negative thoughts that create distance or the enemy. When I see these thoughts I now look at me not the other. I choose trust and love of everyONE.
The humility that is referred to is really ‘I know I don’t know’. I am a trained economist, market analyst, mediator, peacemaker etc. yet what do I know about the reality on the ground or even in the intelligence community who have chosen a path here that embodies the very terrorism they say they fight against? The truth is what you fight against you become. That IS what they came to learn from Afghanistan, Iraq, Sudan, Iran, Palestine, the Balkans and on and on their inner wars go. The soldiers are slowly awakening to the fact they were innocently weaponised as the cause was not freedom but enslavement as they gave up their right to self determination and handed their power to leaders. You cannot bring freedom if you are not free. You cannot teach democracy if political parties are chosen by the few not the many. Yet until the very deep virtues are felt, you cannot know honour as it arises out of a code that is beyond DNA. We are much more than our bodies and the greatness of who we are shines when we realise and live virtue as who we are as distinct from mind control, being used by others for nefarious outcomes.
Life can only exist as a peaceful reality when love is experienced in humans, animals, nature, amoeba as the very flow of nature through us as us. We are same same but different. Diversity is the uniqueness of every human here once in this lifetime and individual. Each has a unique life experience. Imagine if we spent the time learning of people rather than tactical intelligence designed to destroy them as a fictitious enemy is created. When you sit with people, drink tea not for intelligence gathering but ‘being’, you will be sitting as an equal. Afghans believed in equality until Sharia law came in where women were treated as chattels not the extraordinary humans they truly are. Women are the mystery man has been unable to fathom as he holds to his father’s stories yet clings to his mother for love and real security. Love is the mystery she teaches unconditionally that some believe is weakness, in truth it is unity, we naturally join when we feel love as ‘I’ becomes ‘we’. The Afghan’s are more feminine in the sense of nurturing than masculine in the sense of domination, this cultural unity is the essence to their strength. Their mother’s are unbelievably strong and selfless. They bear the pain of the loss of their children embroiled in wars not of their making but of which they are the true sufferers (lifelong).
I watched a Afghan mother’s quiet suffering. She had no education, she was gentle, caring and quiet. She prayed as she had been taught and enjoyed seeing her family and felt despair when parted. When she got cancer she felt she was a piece of meat in the hands of western doctors. She saw their lack of love and care. She was an ancient tribal mother looking upon the social distancing of western medicine that ‘objectifies’ and doesn’t ‘heal’. Often when a family member dies, the family doesn’t tell other members or friends. Why? They do not want them to suffer. Remember the murder or rapist asking for refuge in an Afghan home, why let them stay in the family home? They do not want them to suffer as he asked for help. Remember the British soldiers paying off the elderly man who lost his entire family, he sat there and said not a word. He had no desire for revenge. He was heart broken. His world shattered. He couldn’t comprehend the violence of the soldiers and then the giving of money. The British soldiers could not comprehend the real cost of war in his eyes as they took what was most valuable to him, not money, but family. He didn’t want to cause pain to the soldiers as they have mothers. He would have no desire for revenge. He was devastated.
This was the lesson taught by the humblest people to the richest and allegedly powerful. They wanted the suffering of the Americans and allies to end. They fought to stop the war. The American’s were told they were there to stop terrorism. When their government was the very sponsor of both Al Qaeda and the Taliban. They left the Taliban in power which must have shocked many soldiers across the world. So clearly they were not fighting to end Terrorism.
I share the sentiment of ending suffering on all sides. I include the British, the Australians, the New Zealanders, the Canadians, the Europeans, the Russians, the Japanese, Koreans, Chinese and all those invested in plans and projects that cause suffering as their way of holding onto power and their denial of their own suffering projected outward as a ‘enemy’. I ask them to let go, to learn the lessons of his story and to listen to her story. For the end of suffering only arises when you question the sacred cows you hold as true but clearly do not work.
I particularly send a desire to end suffering to the financiers, the brokers of power, the ones worshipping what they believe is power, to awaken to their real power… to love themselves as they too are enslaved by their beliefs. That is what ends the suffering of the self and others.
I often write in poetry ‘know thyself’ this is not a cliché. It is the very wisdom of the ancients who seem far more advanced than modern man who is returning to a dark age of self hatred.
“Know thyself” (Greek: Γνῶθι σεαυτόν, gnōthi seauton)[a] is a philosophical maxim which was inscribed upon the Temple of Apollo in the ancient Greek precinct of Delphi. The best-known of the Delphic maxims, it has been quoted and analyzed by numerous authors throughout history, and has been applied in many ways. Although traditionally attributed to the Seven Sages of Greece, or to the god Apollo himself, the inscription likely had its origin in a popular proverb. Ion of Chios makes the earliest explicit allusion to the maxim in a fragment dating to the 5th century BC, though the philosopher Heraclitus, active towards the end of the previous century, may also have made reference to the maxim in his works. The principal meaning of the phrase in its original application was “know your limits” – either in the sense of knowing the extent of one’s abilities, knowing one’s place in the world, or knowing oneself to be mortal. In the 4th century BC, however, the maxim was drastically re-interpreted by Plato, who understood it to mean, broadly speaking, “know your soul”.
These scene is Gust Avrokotos, the CIA agent reminding Charlie Wilson of the Zen Master. Can the intelligence community ‘get this’ or are they ‘stupid’. I don’t think they are stupid. They are pawns in the bigger picture.
In Charlie Wilson’s War (2007), Philip Seymour Hoffman’s character warns Charlie Wilson (Tom Hanks) that, “the crazies are rolling into Kandahar.” To reiterate he says, “Listen to what I’m telling you.” In the pause that follows, the sound of a jet is heard, foreshadowing the attacks on 9/11.
Imagine a trillion spent on peace. I am a peacemaker and I’m homeless.
Who were the crazies? You decide.
This is the video that inspired this blog. I don’t agree with any violent comments as my interest is to understand the backstory. I don’t agree with all his narrative, it needs questioning as well. This is not my area of expertise. It is another take on the war and raises questions about the truth. There may be issues raised that require more scrutiny. It is in the public interest.
Is this intelligence, or as a special forces soldier said to me in 2023, ‘they (government) haven’t learned from history’.
Each of us has to decide who we are during these times. To come clean we must admit where we were wrong. You cannot heal the past until you acknowledge your part in it and evaluate the beliefs you hold.
Byron Katie speaks of the ‘I don’t know mind’. (refer www.thework.com) I remember I would ask my Afghan friend what are you thinking?
he said: ‘Nothing‘. That is the beginning of peace. We over think problems. We don’t sit in stillness and get very clear.
What we think we know is untrue if it causes suffering. When we see ourselves in each other, then we start to slowly realise the truth – you are me. So what you put out in this world comes back to you as your very own reflection. The enemy exists within. There is no enemy other than the unquestioned thoughts that believe what others have said not our own lived experience. If an Afghan can love the Soviets, the very government responsible for the death of his father and people, then surely we can find a place within to see the ‘other’ with clarity and no longer believe the negative mind control techniques the intelligence community perfected on the innocent children who suffered endlessly.
When will you stop your suffering?
I will help you if you need me.
I will add another video which speaks to 911. Phillip Marshall was a pilot and CIA officer. He was killed for revealing his 911 truth.
I send love to all sides without prejudice. As the confused mind is the real enemy here.