Kabul Job Opening, U.S. Hiring News Photog, Blames Afghan Corruption on “Negative Media Pics”

U.S. Job Opening for News Photogs, Picture Propagandist: U.S. Blames Afghan Corruption on Photographers for “Negative” and “Misleading” Pics

U.S. Agency for International Development Says it “Can’t Compete”, Posts Job Opening to Address Charges of Corruption in Afghanistan 

(Updated at 1800 hours EST with responses from the United States Agency for International Development)

Nate Thayer

February 12, 2014

The US Agency for International Development (USAID) office in Afghanistan has appealed for news photographers to work as U.S. government propagandists, saying the “overwhelming majority of pictures” by news journalists “are negative and at least to some extent misleading.”

A new job posting by USAID in Kabul seeks professional photographers “with at least one years experience with a news agency” to “to counter negative visual images” and “aggressively distribute these positive images”.

USAID, which is in the midst of an ongoing scandal involving billions of dollars they provided lost to corruption and mismanagement in Afghanistan, does not blame bungled administration of overseeing Afghan corruption and misuse of U.S. money, but rather the news media.

The bad publicity “is because professional photographers working for news agencies are the prime sources of high-quality images of USAID work in Afghanistan. News photographs by their very nature focus on the negative.”

I AM HAZARA TAKING BlOOD BATH IN QUETTA

I AM HAZARA TAKING BlOOD BATH IN QUETTA

A powerful poem from Asmat Hosaini, a Medicine Student from Quetta, Pakistan where a bomb killed 106 people and injured 163 yesterday in a snooker hall. Over 1300 Hazaras have been killed in targeted attacks and shootings in Pakistan.

This poem was written for Irfan Ali, a human rights and peace activist, who died giving first aid to victims of the 1st blast when the second bomb killed him last night.

Hazara child with message for Ban Ki-moon

I AM HAZARA TAKING BlOOD BATH IN QUETTA

A senseless killing took you away last night

Coward ass nigga shot you through a window so you didn’t have a fight

I am hurt that your life had to come to an end this way

Dying at the hand of someone else’s gun play

He didn’t think he just took your life away

Leaving you loved ones with unanswered questions today

I enjoyed the time you and I shared

I will hold those moments close to my heart

And although your life was cut short here on earth

I know your with you make where you’ll get a new start

For those of us who embraced who you were we’ll miss you dearly

As for the one who killed you may his soul burn severely

“I am Hazara carrying Mongol facial feature mostly living in Afghanistan. Hazaras have a unique place and dwelling in the history of cultures and ethnicities for they are only that held oriental and other mixed background as well as communion with the religion of Islam. It is unlike to find another such nationality with the same characteristics. Hazaras are identified by their specific characteristics; Asian like eyes, nose and may more Asian physical attributes. They are most oppressed and most mistreated ethnic in Afghanistan and Pakistan. And unfortunately this vicious saga of brutality barbarism continues everyday of twenty first century against Hazaras in Pakistan.”

Asmat Hosaini is a Medicine Student from Quetta.Asmat. He tweets at @AsmatHosaini and can be reached at asmat.hussaini@yahoo.com

His blog is http://asmathosaini.wordpress.com/2013/01/11/i-am-hazara-taking-blood-bath-in-quetta/