Script+5

WHAT’S UP WITH AFGHANISTAN? (need a better title – or maybe not…)
 * 1) 5 – Mr. G, Harry, Keaton

Show a headline of troops going off to Iraq.

Show where Iraq is and how many troops we have there (about 120k) – we’re talking about pulling them out (see article at end)

But now an emerging issue is Afghanistan – where in the world is that??

Show a spinning world. Maybe poll some people (adults and students) to see if they know where Afghanistan Is located.

Show Afghanistan and its neighbors

Point out Iran and Pakistan

Why are 60,000+ (see article at end) US troops over there? Why are more on the way? What is the Taliban? Why is Afghanistan sometimes called a “graveyard of empires”?

Alexander the Great and the USSR both invaded but were unable to hold the place.

Osama Bin Laden – was in Afghanistan – might still be there… point of the invasion is in part to prevent the country from becoming an Al Qaeda base.

Now there are elections going on – and there’s a recount under way now… This is from Wikipedia: The Afghan presidential and provincial council elections held on August 20, 2009 were widely characterized as marred by lack of security, violence, low [|voterturnout], and widespread [|ballot stuffing], intimidation, and other [|electoralfraud].[|[8]][|[9]] Over 2,300 complaints were received by the Election Complaints Commission, with the largest proportion concerning irregularities at the poll, including ballot box stuffing and voter intimidation.[|[10]] Several weeks after the election day no candidate was yet declared winner in the presidential race, although incumbent President Hamid Karzai was leading in preliminary results and expected to win. Investigation of the fraud allegations could take months.[|[8]] Voter turnout was believed to have been as low as 30-35%.[|[8]] Things are blowing up – and there’s a fear of the Taliban.

Let’s try to make some sense of what’s at stake in Afghanistan’s election.

What would happen if the country fell apart, or went back to Taliban rule?

Real US interest may be Pakistan, but we can’t put troops there… and we’re pulling troops out of Iraq.

How long will US troops remain in Afghanistan? How many?


 * Eboni says: Great start, but I would cite someone other than Wikipedia.

Chiraayu:** Okay-- As Eboni said, you might want to have some more reliable sources. I think it might be interesting to create two videos on Afghanistan. One on U.S. involvement and another on the territorial conflicts within the country.. Perhaps a territorial conflict video could lead into the U.S. involvement so that viewers can see directly how the U.S. is solving (or not solving) the root problems.

Briana: i agree about the Wikipedia source. Maybe that was just background information so we could understand the script better? And this script could be broken down into two parts: Afghanistan's turmoil within itself and Afghanistan's turmoil caused by external sources (maybe the US could go here as an external impact? I don't know). You guys could make this into a series of videos... doing a complete overview of Afghanistan's conflicts could be a really long video. But good scripts so far!