Beyond Belief: Another Way to Rethink Afghanistan

By David Swanson

This is not from the Rethink Afghanistan project, which has been producing so many great clips about Afghanistan (including their latest, Part 5, about women). This is a full length film from 2006 about two American women whose husbands were killed on 9-11-2001 who raise money for and visit Afghanistan women whose husbands were killed by American bombs. This movie is probably more relevant now than it was in 2006. It is extremely well done. It's called Beyond Belief.

The film does not attempt to make a thorough case against the invasion or ongoing occupation, but it makes a gut-wrenchingly complete case for the horrific failure of the wealthy world to share the meagerest crumbs with our fellow human beings. Here we watch two American women who have been overcome by their own grief but suffered no financial hardship take the usual steps to raise money ($140K) for a good cause, including bicycling from NY to Boston (we always give more money if people will bicycle or jog for it) -- while, it goes unstated, we are as a people dumping hundreds of BILLIONS of dollars into a far different approach. And then we see these women sit face-to-face in Afghanistan with women who look them in the eye and say "thank you, but I wish you had come before my children starved to death."

What in the world is the matter with us? Watch the clips below:


Beyond Belief Trailer -- In Theaters 2/29 - More amazing videos are a click away