Photo: Kusa Dogwood, Lois Barber
January 2022 - We are sending you the January 2022 Action early because the need is so urgent. The US has been deeply engaged in and supportive of Afghanistan for over 20 years. Since our withdrawal in August, the billions of dollars annually in US aid to Afghanistan has stopped dead. We also bear a heavy moral responsibility for the sanctions we have imposed cutting it off from most other sources of aid. This has basically collapsed the Afghan economy and caused a food scarcity of crisis proportions. The UN World Food Program and other aid groups have been long established in Afghanistan and can deliver food directly to the people who need it most. But they don't have nearly the resources that are desperately and immediately needed to keep children from starvation.
TAKE ACTION:
- Contact Pres. Biden who can take Executive action to help avoid a mass catastrophe in Afghanistan. A brief message is best. Below is a letter of the sort you might send to him.
- If you can, we encourage you to make a personal donation to the UN World Food Program which has worked in Afghanistan since 1963. This would be most helpful because it can be used immediately. They say that a $75 donation feeds a family of 5 for a month. This is only a small part of what is needed, but for that family, for that month, it means survival. Click on
https://www.wfpusa.org/news-release/half-of-afghanistans-population-face-acute-hunger/
Then click on the red DONATE sign at the top. Thank you so much.
CONTACT: President Biden
- Web: https://www.whitehouse.gov/contact/ (leave a message)
- Tel: 1-202-456-1111 (leave a message)
- Mail: The White House, 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW, Washington DC 20500
Please send this email on to family and friends and/or write a letter-to-the-editor on this important issue. It is a good way to educate others and build support for needed policies.
Sample message to President Biden (you can leave this on the White House website: https://www.whitehouse.gov/contact/
President Joseph R. Biden
The White House
Washington DC
Dear Mr. President,
I am in anguish about the 1 million children that could actually starve to death in Afghanistan this winter (NY Times: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/04/world/asia/afghanistan-starvation-crisis.html). That is horrific. They are surely innocent by any measure.
Please do your utmost to prevent this catastrophe: transfer funds to the UN World Food Program and other aid agencies, lift some sanctions on the Taliban, and send emergency food supplies to Afghanistan. We cannot sit by, while we, by sanctioning the Taliban, prevent Afghan children from getting food to survive.
Mr. President, you are an empathic person. I know you are extremely busy, but please act to prevent a humanitarian catastrophe that is surely coming if nothing is done.
Thank you for your help in this matter.
Sincerely yours,
(your name and address)
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