WCCA TV

Bad News For Afghanistan
by Doug Grindle
August 24, 2008

Kabul, Afghanistan - The war in Afghanistan forges ahead. But a new reality is setting in. Unfortunately, it looks like things are likely to get worse before the situation can get better.
How much worse? Attacks by insurgents are up by 40-percent over a year earlier in many areas.
NATO commanders are calling for more NATO troops. Forces are stretched thin in the farthest reaches of the Pakistan border areas.
Better equipment is needed. More mine-resistant vehicles are being deployed (though that’s not a miracle cure, as the high center of gravity on the vehicles on mountain roads can lead to roll-over problems).
More Afghan troops are needed. The Afghan National Army, with its 70,000 man force, is fighting the Taliban and a half-dozen or so other insurgent groups, including al Qaeda. This year the US has finally agreed to pony up billions more dollars to expand the army by another 50,000 men. By contrast, the police force for New York City is 48,000 officers.
But the biggest and most important change of all is one you won't see mentioned too often: suddenly Pakistan matters.
Up until now, the official line went roughly that the border was unsealable, and the war needed to be won inside Afghanistan instead. The strategy was to win the war by enticing Afghan villagers to reject insurgents after they crossed the porous border and arrived in the villages.
The army's plan is to offer better security, better local Aghan government and a heap of local aid projects (schools, roads and power plants) to persuade the villagers to side with the Kabul government. The war would be won despite the border areas over in Pakistan continuing to host terrorist sanctuaries.
Now Army officers say that strategy is probably not going to be enough.
"I don't think there will be a successful conclusion to the war in Afghanistan until there is a successful conclusion to the issues along the Pakistan frontier," said Brigadier General Mark Milley, the deputy commander of the 101st Airborne Division at Bagram, the unit in charge of many of the border areas.
That assessment bodes especially ill because Pakistan is, frankly, a mess.
Now that Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf has resigned, a weak government rules Pakistan.
The Pakistan military consistently loses its battles with terrorist in the tribal areas.
Al Qaeda and other militants are becoming more entrenched in the border regions.
The ISI, Pakistan's intelligence agency, helped blow up the Indian embassy in Kabul last month, according to US intelligence. Hardline ISI officers continue to help the terrorists, as long as they focus on destabilizing Afghanistan.
In short, the situation on the Pakistan side of the frontier is bad and likely to get worse.
Change in Afghanistan is slow, but its remorseless.
The US Army's strategy is an awfully slow one, because it takes literally years to build the roads, schools and hydro-electric plants that are the key to the plan.
Opposing the US, Al Qaeda is slowly putting more effort into Afghanistan, even as it scales back in Iraq. Terrorists are slowly but steadily getting better at killing western soldiers, by using roadside bombs and improving their ambush techniques. Casualties among western soldiers are set to be the highest ever this year.
Something needs to be done. Something is being done. But that something is likely to be dependent more than ever on what happens in Pakistan - where the American military is banned from operating.
So the latest news from Afghanistan is not good.

DG

Most people are aware, economic development includes more than event attendance. The attention given to nurturing and building an audience and a cultural community plays an important role which will ultimately produce economic spin off.

It is important to note that, on an annual basis, WCCA presents numerous music concerts and performing arts shows of various genres, programs that showcase artist, and other cultural institutions, and youth media programming, and educational events. Each week you are bound to find new TV shows on WCCA , featuring discussions with authors, craftspersons, poets, and promoting cultural events throughout the city, are all accompanied by in depth news coverage, in numerous languages, each going beyond the 60 second sound bite found in most commercial news segments.

The above reflects WCCA's proactive role in nurturing and inspiring artist and future artist, cutlural enthusiast and temps audience curiosity. Whereas the video content presented on WCCA TV is created by volunteers, video artist, writers, each show is a unique cultural event in itself. This is all only a small part of what WCCA accomplishes in its daily operation as it has for the past 22 and half years. WCCA volunteers and staff are building community and contributing to economic development through electronic media everyday.

The daily cultural events on WCCA TV are presented to over 55,000 cable subscribers in addition to hundreds of web subscribers each week.

At another level, WCCA averages about three open house ( in-house) cultural events per year. In 2006, WCCA celebrated it's twentieth birthday. We recorded an average of about 2100 attended these events over the last five years. This number does not include our television production classes and special workshops, volunteer projects and outreach activities off site, in addition to about an average of 60 persons per day foot traffic into our facility who participate in the creative process of television and community media production.

Public Access is important for a city, reaching into the homes of audiences contributing to not only a free flow of information and fresh ideas, it adds tangible vibrancy to Worcester's downtown core in a unique and inclusive way. WCCA TV is vitally important for Worcester and it's economic development.

Creative Economy Council Passes in the Mass. Senate
Bosley Bill Advances to the Governor's Desk

WCCA TV, public access, is an important, vital part of the Creative Economy. WCCA TV facilitates a free speech platform which represents a free flow of information which any creative economy depends upon. WCCA also encourages citizen participation, civic engagement, open dialog, fresh and diverse ideas essential to creativity and an creative economy. We hope our city leaders ( councilors and administration ) are opened minded to the value of WCCA TV, as we share the following good news from MAASH.

"Dear Friends,

This week the Massachusetts Senate passed Rep. Dan Bosley's bill to create a statewide council on the creative economy. The council will work with the Office of Economic Development to “develop a statewide strategy for the enhancement, encouragement, and growth of the creative economy in the commonwealth, and to promote through public and private means responsive public policies and innovative private sector practices.”

MAASH thanks Senate President Therese Murray, Senator Ben Downing and the entire Senate for their hard work and support on behalf of our creative economy.

Rep. Dan Bosley (D-N. Adams), House Chairman of the Joint Committee on Economic Development and Emerging Technologies, sponsored the bill and guided it through the House legislative process. Senator Ben Downing (D-Berkshire County) successfully shepherded the bill through the Senate.

“Massachusetts is the national leader in innovation and in growing the creative economy. By establishing this council, we will be able to identify strategies, effective practices and ideas so that the non-profit cultural organizations, the for-profit businesses and creative individuals can thrive.” Chairman Bosley said.

The council will consist of 23 members including legislators, the director of MAASH, the director of the Massachusetts Cultural Council, and other leaders in the creative economy movement.

The text of the bill is posted on the MAASH web site:

http://www.maash.org/news/creative_economy_council_bill.pdf

The creative economy council bill now moves to the Governor for his consideration.

Thank you,

Dan Hunter
Executive Director
Massachusetts Advocates for the Arts, Sciences, & Humanities (MAASH) "

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