I was scanning Yahoo News today and I saw this article. I though I'd share it with you all.
Anti-war graffiti group become Afghanistan's 'Talibanksy'
by Lynne O'Donnell
KABUL (AFP) – On walls around Afghanistan's scrappy capital, where million-dollar mansions line rutted roads, anonymous graffiti artists are daubing their disapproving take on the devastating cost of war.Styled after the anonymous British vandal-artist Banksy, Kabul's streetwise stealth stencillers go by the moniker "Talibanksy", a reference to the Islamist Taliban who have been waging war in Afghanistan for almost nine years.
The street art forms a commentary on the cost in blood and treasure of the war, which has brought 126,000 US and NATO troops to Afghanistan and kills about 2,000 Afghan civilians a year, according to the UN.
Black, spray-painted silhouettes of soldiers and dollar signs, poppies, helicopters and tanks, and children running hand-in-hand began appearing in downtown Kabul a few months ago.
Some show the shadow of a helmeted soldier holding an assault rifle, inside a red circle with a line through it. Others have a silhouetted gun-toting trooper and a dollar sign joined by an equals symbol.
Or simply the words: Cost Of War.
Financially the war is estimated to cost some 100 million dollars a day, according to US media reports.
The human cost to foreign forces so far this year is close to 170, according to the icasualties.org website which keeps tally and says that of the 1,737 who have died since the war began in 2001, 1,051 were Americans.
The people behind the anti-war graffiti call themselves Combat Communications, and claim to be "a small anonymous group of international artists founded last year with the sole aim of advocating/promoting free expression".
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Very thought provoking post Drea. Thank you.
ReplyDeleteThank you for this. I admire Bansky's work.
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