Abandon All Hope:
Welcome to Afghanistan

Featured on "MSNBC Investigates" and "Oprah"

Now accepting orders for the full-length "Director's Cut" of this frightening, yet fascinating, documentary by American filmmaker Len Sherman.

In the spring of 2000, Sherman slipped into northern Afghanistan to meet the resistance fighters struggling against Osama bin Laden and the ruling Taliban. However, little did he know the true depths of hatred for the United States when faced with the opportunity to speak with a number of followers of bin Laden and the Taliban.

Afghanistan is about as far away from here as you can go. There should be a certain safety in that distance. There should be a certain safety being so far removed from the blood and hate, the war of fanaticism and terrorism and all the rest of the insanity that has found a home in Afghanistan. There should be a certain safety for those of us so far away, for the West, for America, for you and I... but there isn’t, not anymore.

The United National Islamic Front for the Salvation of Afghanistan, also known as the Northern Alliance, rules over twenty percent of the country, centered in the northeast, depending on the state of war that day. The rest of Afghanistan is Taliban territory, and that means the band of Islamic fundamentalists who shelter international terrorist Osama Bin Laden and other terrorist leaders, finance their rogue state through the global heroin trade, and force women to cover themselves from head to foot while denying them the most basic rights.

Arab and Moslem extremists from all over the world come to Afghanistan to train and fight for the Taliban, and for Bin Laden, to learn the tools not just of the soldier but also of the terrorist. The Northern Alliance had captured a number of these men in its war with the Taliban, and were holding them in a POW camp somewhere within the Afghan mountains.

Some of these prisoners were ready to talk, and they crowded the camera, glad for this change in their routing of farm work, praying, and a great deal of sitting and waiting. Try to understand the motivation of individuals who, unable to speak any of the local dialects, without any means to retrace their steps home, would leave their families and travel hundreds or thousands of miles to fight in a strange land. They know they have virtually no prospects of release, not while the war continues. Nonetheless, they are as fierce as ever, determined to destroy and kill in the name of their ideology.

As unreasonable and unreasoning as all this might sound, remember one thing, just because somebody is unreasonable or unreasoning or, to cut to the chase, just because he’s stupid and crazy, doesn’t mean he’s not dangerous. Who’s crazier than a suicide bomber? Two suicide bombers, happily blowing themselves to bits in order to kill American sailors in a port of Yemen, for the glory of their cause and their god.

A Yemen terrorist was interviewed, who proclaimed his eagerness to depart Afghanistan and kill Americans and other Westerners. Thus, instead of being an interesting story with good visuals starring some lunatics who were reassuringly far away, it had transformed into a tale of immediate, frightening relevance.

In other words, Afghanistan is about as far from here as a place can be. Unfortunately, that might not be far enough.

Running Time: 48 minutes
Price: $9.95 video tap / $14.95 DVD
Available Formats: NTSC or PAL video

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