ben anderson

[london]

intro’d to him when Thomas tweeted his documentary – this is what winning looks like.

find/follow Ben:

Ben Anderson is a journalist, television reporter, and writer. A winner of the Foreign Press Award, he was born in Middlesbrough and now lives in London.

______

Ben on why he does what he does – 2010

_____________

..more civilians would soon start joining the Taliban if things didn’t change. “Life has no meaning for me anymore,” said one man. “I have lost 27 members of my family. My house has been destroyed. Everything I’ve built for 70 years is gone.”

“I lost 20 people, and I was given 2 million afghanis [about $36,000],” said one man. “It was before 12:30 at night, when your forces came to our area. They were involved in a fight, but the Taliban retreated. Later, a jet came and dropped bombs on our house. Two rooms were destroyed. In one of the rooms, my two nephews and my son were there. My son survived. I rescued him from the debris. Six of my uncle’s family were in the other room. All became martyrs. They were buried under the soil. I moved the children away and came back to rescue those under the debris. While we were trying to do that, the children were so frightened they started running away. The plane shot them one by one.

“All we want is security, whether you bring it or the Taliban. We are not supporting war. We support peace and security. If you bring peace and security, you are my king. If they bring security, they are our kings.” 

 _____________

his book site – no worse enemy:

_______________

11 min – Ben describes what’s happened – how no one would go for that deal

23 min – after 2001 – we chose to put those people back in power

35 min – seems the worst a country is.. the nicest the people tend to be