Several UW-Madison professors held a teach-in about the military conflicts in Afghanistan and Pakistan Friday and Saturday to educate students about the war.
Uli Schamiloglu, UW-Madison professor of languages and cultures of Asia, began the panel with his presentation entitled, ""Afghanistan: The Current Facts of the Ground.""
Schamiloglu discussed how the media's one-dimensional portrayal of Afghanistan's geography has led to a one-dimensional view of the country in general.
""If you were to have looked at a map of Afghanistan like that ... it all looks rather homogeneous,"" Schamiloglu said. ""But the first point that I would like to make is that Afghanistan is anything but homogeneous.""
Schamiloglu went on to discuss the diversity of Afghanistan's religions, regions, politics and languages.
He finished by posing several questions, such as how the U.S. should define success in Afghanistan and Pakistan and whether the U.S. has an exit strategy.
""I think they do talk about the 18 months [as a deadline for ending military operations] ... but I don't think we're talking about an exit strategy, and I think basically we're thinking about being there for a long time,"" Schamiloglu said.
Alfred McCoy, UW-Madison professor of history, also discussed how and why the U.S. has become trapped in a cycle of drugs and death in Afghanistan.
The teach-in continued all day Saturday at Memorial Union as volunteer panels of faculty, campus, student and community groups discussed human factors in the Afghanistan and Pakistan conflicts as well as shortcomings in U.S. strategies.
UW-Madison has a long history of teach-ins, beginning in 1965 when several UW-Madison faculty members held a teach-in about Vietnam that attracted more than 1,000 students.
