January 26, 2004
Quote Of The Moment #0041
The American attack on Afghanistan in 2001 was reported as a liberation. But the evidence on the ground is that, for 95 per cent of the people, there is no liberation. The Taliban have been merely exchanged for a group of American funded warlords, rapists, murderers and war criminals – terrorists by any measure: the very people whom President Carter secretly armed and the CIA trained for almost 20 years.
One of the most powerful warlords is General Rashid Dostum. General Dostum was visited by Donald Rumsfeld, the US Defence Secretary, who came to express his gratitude. He called the general a "thoughtful" man and congratulated him on his part in the war on terror. This is the same General Dostum in whose custody 4,000 prisoners died terrible deaths just over two years ago – the allegations are that wounded men were left to suffocate and bleed to death in containers. Mary Robinson, when she was the UN’s senior humanitarian representative, called for an inquiry; but there was none for this kind of acceptable terrorism. The general is the face of the new Afghanistan you don’t see in the media.
What you see is the urbane Harmid Karzai, whose writ barely extends beyond his 42 American bodyguards. Only the Taliban seem to excite the indignation of our political leaders and media. Yet under the new, approved regime, women still wear the burqua, largely because they fear to walk down the street. Girls are routinely abducted, raped, murdered.
Posted by Eddie Tews at January 26, 2004 05:44 PM
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