Fahim Fazli Turn: Afghanistan, Hollywood and Memorial Day
Fahim Fazli
The first Afghan Born American Actor in Hollywood. Collaborative Author, Script Collaborator, Motivational Speaker ,Afghan culture technical advisor. Languages Fluent ,English, Pashto, Dari ,Iranian Farsi,
- Michael Moffett stands with Fahim Fazli. Courtesy
- By MICHAEL MOFFETT
For the Monitor
Published: 5/29/2017 12:15:11 AM
Recent Monitor opinion pieces have rightly focused attention on Afghanistan, the site of America’s longest war, and a place where President Donald Trump wants to increase our presence to 12,000 troops. So should we? Force level questions bring us back to 2001 and the 9/11 attacks.
Like millions of fellow citizens, I responded to 9/11 by offering to do what I could for our country. I was soon back in a Marine Corps uniform, working for Gen. Tommy Franks at the ground operations desk in the top-secret war room at Central Command at MacDill AFB in Tampa, Fla.
We received updates there on the latest Afghanistan developments – where we had zero troops. We moved some CIA people and Special Forces to Karshi-Khanabad in Uzbekistan, north of Afghanistan, as the first step in engaging Afghanistan’s Taliban regime, which provided safe haven to Osama Bin Laden and the al-Qaida plotters who masterminded 9/11. All this was then top secret.