Could President Carter not step forward and defend this innocent population by recounting the 'Cold War' history that played out in 1979 in Afghanistan? Your prominent and highly respected voice could lessen the enmity of America toward the Taliban and make a transition to peace earlier, thus saving many lives.
On May 11, 2009, respected journalist Chris Hedges wrote, "The bodies of dozens, perhaps well over a hundred, women, children and men, their corpses blown into bits of human flesh by iron fragmentation bombs dropped by U.S. warplanes in a village in the western province of Farah, illustrates the futility of the Afghan war. We are not delivering democracy or liberation or development. We are delivering massive, sophisticated forms of industrial slaughter. And because we have employed the blunt and horrible instrument of war in a land we know little about and are incapable of reading, we embody the barbarism we claim to be seeking to defeat."
So much death and destruction for the actions of armies of most of the industrialized nations of the world, since the death of Osama bin Laden, now admitted to be principally fighting the Taliban.
A terrible history is given by the non-political Wiki-encyclopedia.
' Once the Soviet troop withdrawal was complete in Feb. 1989, US interest in Afghanistan ceased. The US decided not to help with reconstruction of the country, instead handing the interests of the country over to US allies Saudi Arabia and Pakistan.
After the fall of the communist regime in 1992, outside forces saw instability as an opportunity to press their own political agendas. Pakistan quickly forged relations with warlords. Saudi Arabia supported the Wahhabite Abdul Rasul Sayyaf and his Ittihad-i Islami faction. Conflict between the two militias soon escalated into a full-scale war. Due to the sudden initiation of the war, working government departments, police units or a system of justice and accountability for the newly-created Islamic State of Afghanistan did not have time to form. Horrific crimes were committed by criminals and individuals inside different factions. Rare ceasefires, commonly collapsed within days. The most often-repeated story and the Taliban's own story of how Mullah Omar first mobilized his followers is that in the spring of 1994, neighbors in Singesar told him that the local governor had abducted two teenage girls, shaved their heads, and taken them to a camp where they were raped. 30 Taliban (with only 16 rifles) freed the girls, and hanged the governor from the barrel of a tank.' The Taliban's first victory came in 1995. In the beginning the Taliban numbered in the hundreds, were badly equipped and low on munitions. Within months however 15,000 students arrived from the madrassas in Pakistan.[47] The Taliban's first major military activity was in 1994, when they marched northward from Maiwand and captured Kandahar City and the surrounding provinces, losing only a few dozen men.[48] When they took control of Kandahar in 1994, they forced the surrender of dozens of local Pashtun leaders who had presided over a situation of complete lawlessness and atrocities.
A few years later I asked a kindly looking Afghan New York Taxi driver, (had a photo of his three young children pinned above his rear view mirror), what he and his Afghan friends thought about the Taliban government. "Taliban is saving our country, making the streets and homes safe again. Taliban is our only hope for peace." The Taliban is credited with having protected women as well as enforcing strict covering clothing and now blowing up schools built with US funds to teach girls. US media reports crimes against women as all being committed by the Taliban and one good reason why Americans are fighting the Taliban. The Taliban all but eliminated poppy growing which since US occupation is flowering and producing opium more than ever. It seems the Taliban still rules over more land area than the government elected under the US occupation does, a government that Western media denounces continually as corrupt. President, Karzai is forced to continually plead for the US to stop collaterally bombing civilians.
Whatever the truth about the nature of the Taliban, everyone seems to agree that Afghans, by whatever name, will never stop fighting occupying foreign armies, and expecting to train Afghans to shoot their own countrymen is foolish. Recently, Afghan US trained soldiers are killing more US military than are the Taliban.
Dear President Jimmy, please demand a shred of mercy for the Afghan population. Not one single Afghani has ever attacked anywhere outside his country in our time. America has enemies in many other countries, yet the U.S., NATO, Russia, Japan, China, and other countries that have 90% of the world's military power are participating in, or supporting, the violent occupation of one of the poorest nations in the world.
Appreciative of your work for peace in Palestine and for Alaska's conservation,
,
jay janson at your service
August 31, 2012
On May 11, 2009, respected journalist Chris Hedges wrote, "The bodies of dozens, perhaps well over a hundred, women, children and men, their corpses blown into bits of human flesh by iron fragmentation bombs dropped by U.S. warplanes in a village in the western province of Farah, illustrates the futility of the Afghan war. We are not delivering democracy or liberation or development. We are delivering massive, sophisticated forms of industrial slaughter. And because we have employed the blunt and horrible instrument of war in a land we know little about and are incapable of reading, we embody the barbarism we claim to be seeking to defeat."
So much death and destruction for the actions of armies of most of the industrialized nations of the world, since the death of Osama bin Laden, now admitted to be principally fighting the Taliban.
A terrible history is given by the non-political Wiki-encyclopedia.
After the fall of the communist regime in 1992, outside forces saw instability as an opportunity to press their own political agendas. Pakistan quickly forged relations with warlords. Saudi Arabia supported the Wahhabite Abdul Rasul Sayyaf and his Ittihad-i Islami faction. Conflict between the two militias soon escalated into a full-scale war. Due to the sudden initiation of the war, working government departments, police units or a system of justice and accountability for the newly-created Islamic State of Afghanistan did not have time to form. Horrific crimes were committed by criminals and individuals inside different factions. Rare ceasefires, commonly collapsed within days. The most often-repeated story and the Taliban's own story of how Mullah Omar first mobilized his followers is that in the spring of 1994, neighbors in Singesar told him that the local governor had abducted two teenage girls, shaved their heads, and taken them to a camp where they were raped. 30 Taliban (with only 16 rifles) freed the girls, and hanged the governor from the barrel of a tank.' The Taliban's first victory came in 1995. In the beginning the Taliban numbered in the hundreds, were badly equipped and low on munitions. Within months however 15,000 students arrived from the madrassas in Pakistan.[47] The Taliban's first major military activity was in 1994, when they marched northward from Maiwand and captured Kandahar City and the surrounding provinces, losing only a few dozen men.[48] When they took control of Kandahar in 1994, they forced the surrender of dozens of local Pashtun leaders who had presided over a situation of complete lawlessness and atrocities.
A few years later I asked a kindly looking Afghan New York Taxi driver, (had a photo of his three young children pinned above his rear view mirror), what he and his Afghan friends thought about the Taliban government. "Taliban is saving our country, making the streets and homes safe again. Taliban is our only hope for peace." The Taliban is credited with having protected women as well as enforcing strict covering clothing and now blowing up schools built with US funds to teach girls. US media reports crimes against women as all being committed by the Taliban and one good reason why Americans are fighting the Taliban. The Taliban all but eliminated poppy growing which since US occupation is flowering and producing opium more than ever. It seems the Taliban still rules over more land area than the government elected under the US occupation does, a government that Western media denounces continually as corrupt. President, Karzai is forced to continually plead for the US to stop collaterally bombing civilians.
Whatever the truth about the nature of the Taliban, everyone seems to agree that Afghans, by whatever name, will never stop fighting occupying foreign armies, and expecting to train Afghans to shoot their own countrymen is foolish. Recently, Afghan US trained soldiers are killing more US military than are the Taliban.
Dear President Jimmy, please demand a shred of mercy for the Afghan population. Not one single Afghani has ever attacked anywhere outside his country in our time. America has enemies in many other countries, yet the U.S., NATO, Russia, Japan, China, and other countries that have 90% of the world's military power are participating in, or supporting, the violent occupation of one of the poorest nations in the world.
Appreciative of your work for peace in Palestine and for Alaska's conservation,
,
jay janson at your service
August 31, 2012
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