The “humanitarian” campaign for the war in Afghanistan

[Hannah Bell]

The US media has launched a full-scale effort to suppress growing popular opposition to the war in Afghanistan, using one-sided propaganda about Taliban atrocities to conceal the murderous character of the American intervention. Beginning with the cover of Time magazine...

It is fair to ask a different question, however. Why didn’t the Time editor publish a photograph on the magazine’s front cover of any of the thousands of innocent Afghan men, women and children killed by US air strikes, missiles, artillery and mortar shells? He might have chosen the scene at Kunduz, where 140 people were incinerated in a single air strike that detonated a gasoline tanker. Or the wedding party in the eastern province of Nangarhar, where 47 were blown to fragments by bombs and missiles, including the young bride. Or the 90 people machine-gunned by US helicopter gunships during a funeral ceremony in Herat province. Or any of the hundreds of individual, small-scale killings of civilians detailed in the recent release of documents by WikiLeaks.

There are enough such victims of imperialism in Iraq and Afghanistan to fill the covers of American news magazines for decades to come. But the giant corporations that control the media are not in the business of informing the American people about the atrocities being committed in their name. Their task is to manipulate public opinion in the interests of policies decided on by the financial aristocracy and its political representatives, and they are hard at work at that task.

The Time cover is a lie on another level as well. The horrific treatment of women under the Taliban (and to a large extent under the US-backed Karzai regime as well), is itself the product of the American intervention in Afghanistan over the course of three decades. The Carter and Reagan administrations sought to mobilize opposition to a Soviet-backed regime in which, at least in urban areas, women had substantially improved rights, education and social standing. The mujahedin were drawn from the most right-wing elements in the Islamic world, financed by Saudi Arabia, trained by the CIA in terror techniques, and dispatched to Afghanistan. Among them was the future leader of Al Qaeda, Osama bin Laden. The United States government deliberately fomented and spread a version of Islamic fundamentalism that had no widespread support at the time, except from a handful of close US allies like the Saudi monarchy...

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2010/aug2010/pers-a10.shtml

[ConsAreLiars]

1. Thank you. That sort of demonizing of 'the enemy' in order to propagandize the gullible

has been used by tyrants and warmongers and 'manifest destiny' promoters forever.

Sad to see that that BS is swallowed and then regurgitated even on DU. They pretend, or stupidly imagine themselves to be concerned about some human rights offense by 'the other,' while they support the mass murders by the imperial power that imported and funded the fundie crazies which now get used as another justification for conquest and geopolitical positioning.

[Hannah Bell]

2. a regular feature at DU. it's really astonishing. they're more concerned about women wearing

the wrong clothes than that they might be bombed, tortured, dispossessed, made refugee, lose their husbands, families, children.

their husbands & fathers being cast as the "oppressors" who put them in burkas, their mothers as the "oppressors" who cut their genitals -- while the invader is cast as a savior who will remove them from all these "oppressors" -- one way or another.

to make it even *more* ironic, if that is possible, it's the US who brought the Taliban to power in the first place & the US who sparked the resurgence of fundamentalism in the middle east.

[ConsAreLiars]

5. RAWA has been telling that same truth for decades.

Following is from: http://www.rawa.org/rawa/2010/03/07/emancipation-of-afghan-women-not-attainable-as-long-as-the-occupation-taliban-and-national-front-criminals-are-not-sacked.html and more follows:

Emancipation of Afghan women not attainable as long as the occupation, Taliban and “National Front” criminals are not sacked!

Statement of the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan (RAWA) on the International Women’s Day, March 8, 2010

Today, on the 8th of March, Afghan women are mourning for the gang-rape of Bashiras and Saimas, for being flogged by most lowed elements, for being auctioned in open market and for their young daughters who put an end to their miserable lives by self-immolation. But the perpetrators of all these crimes are forgiven; therefore they enjoy complete immunity, are still holding their official positions and tightening it through plundering our people and country.

(Photo here) Local warlords publicly flogged two Afghan women.
February 2010: Local warlords in Ghor province in Western Afghanistan publicly flogged two Afghan women.

Though we don’t expect anything different from the most corrupt and dirty puppet regime of the world, the pain of Afghan women turns chronic when the world believes that the US and NATO has donated liberation, democracy and human and women rights for Afghanistan; whereas, after eight years of the US and allies’ aggression under the banner of “war on terror”, they empowered the most brutal terrorists of the Northern Alliance and the former Russian puppets – the Khalqis and Parchamis – and by relying on them, the US imposed a puppet government on Afghan people. And instead of uprooting its Taliban and Al-Qaeda creations, the US and NATO continues to kill our innocent and poor civilians, mostly women and children, in their vicious air raids.

In such conditions, we saw that Karzai, as the most demagogic and flagrant President, turgidly talks about the London Conference, which in fact had no positive outcome for Afghan people, where he only bargained and dealt for the return of the terrorist Taliban and Gulbuddin Hekmatyar to power and the pouring of millions of more Dollars which will go to the pockets of the Karzai family and the mafias of Fahim, Khalili, Dostum and other murderers.

[Hannah Bell]

7. Thanks for that.

[Turborama]

8. No they haven't: Will Lies and Falsehood Help the Taliban?

RAWA statement, April 19,1999


The stench of barbarism, mediaevalism and misogyny emanating from the Taliban has recently become so pronounced that even the president of the United States felt it necessary to raise his voice and condemn the Taliban's policies as a "terrible perversion of Islam" and to add that the Taliban's treatment of women and children in Afghanistan is atrocious.

According to the NNI News Agency (April 17, 1999) the Taliban have, through their "ambassador" in Islamabad Maulavi Sayed-ur-Rahman Haqqani, countered Mr Clinton's remarks with pronouncements so utterly ridiculous and deceitful that any objective, level-headed observer who still needs to be convinced would be rewarded with a remarkable insight into the brazenness and hopeless ignorance of the fundamentalists.

The distinguished Taliban "ambassador" claims that "one hundred per cent of Afghan women are happy

with Taliban policies". The sheer shamelessness of this lie! What person in his or her right mind would be able to believe that Afghan women who

- are penned up like sheep in the recesses of their homes

- are deprived of the right to education and to work outside the house

- are barred from seeking medical attention -even if they themselves or their children perish of hunger or for want of medical care

- are compelled through extreme impoverishment to sell off their dear children

- do not have the right to use all-women public bath-houses in conditions where few homes have bathing facilities

- are insulted and humiliated and flogged for not wearing clothes in accordance with Taliban tastes

- whose only staunch and intrepid organisation (RAWA) is daily the target of blood-curdling terrorist threats

--who, in his or her right mind and living day in and day out with hundreds of such senseless infringements on individual rights and liberties under Taliban domination would still support the Taliban's trademark policy of the gallows, the whip and systematic humiliation of the population at large? Only those of Taliban moral and intellectual calibre would be capable of such an insult to humanity. If nothing else, the determined and intrepid struggle waged by RAWA and the participation of hundreds of women in RAWA-staged demonstrations and gatherings are a sufficient slap-in-the-mouth to the Taliban mouthing such painful, yet hilarious, claims.

Full statement: http://www.rawa.org/lies.htm

[Name removed]

10. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Turborama]

12. I'm sorry but this doesn't make any sense...

Your pathetic jackassery in posting that well known, among those with any interest, fact, well it isa well known and is part of the reason their denunciation of your favorite new masters of the world is more credible.

It's difficult to read what you're trying to say, apart from the obvious argumentum ad hominem.

[Hannah Bell]

11. you don't get it. There's no contradiction between wanting the US out & wanting the Taliban out.

How the US Funds the Taliban

http://www.thenation.com/article/how-us-funds-taliban




JAY: Alright. So just to kind of give some big sweeps to this, so you've got this period. The US policy is to induce the Soviets into Afghanistan, or at least facilitate it. They certainly succeed, which leads to years of war, which also tends to, as one person has said, turn Pakistan into a country with a Kalashnikov culture. The whole Pakistan society starts to be transformed by the billions of dollars going—arms going this way and drugs coming this way back into Pakistan. Eventually the Russians leave. Tell us what happens next.

GOULD: Well, that's when everything really does fall apart. And the—again, in terms of the mujahideen, what ended up happening was the multiple groups of Islamists known as the mujahideen began to war with one another in their attempt to take over Afghanistan. In fact, Gulbuddin Hekmatyar and Ahmad Shah Massoud were two of the main people who caused the major destruction in Kabul—75 percent of Kabul was destroyed during the exchanges. And that actually was the precipitator of the creation of the Taliban. In an effort to try and guarantee that—the Pakistanis wanted to guarantee that they would have a Pakistani-friendly government installed in Afghanistan. The Taliban became the method and went around to the refugee camps, where they basically brought Afghan boys into the madrasahs and indoctrinated them. But this was all part of the buildup that eventually was presented, by 1994-96, as an Afghan movement, but really was very much part of the ideological political process that the Pakistani ISI military

JAY: Together with the Saudis, I think, should be added.

FITZGERALD: Together with the Saudis. But also the United States was very much behind it. And, you know, Madeleine Albright, as an example, was very, very positive on backing the Taliban, and she considered them to be a cleansing force.

http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=5439

[Turborama]

14. This is what I get

YOU:

a regular feature at DU. it's really astonishing. they're more concerned about women wearing

the wrong clothes than that they might be bombed, tortured, dispossessed, made refugee, lose their husbands, families, children.

their husbands & fathers being cast as the "oppressors" who put them in burkas, their mothers as the "oppressors" who cut their genitals -- while the invader is cast as a savior who will remove them from all these "oppressors" -- one way or another.

ConsAreLiars

RAWA has been telling that same truth for decades.


-

My post refutes the assertion that "RAWA has been telling that same truth for decades".

[Hannah Bell]

15. your post refutes no such thing.

& you didn't "get" my post, as it wasn't addressed to you & wasn't about *you*

[Turborama]

17. My post wasn't addressed to you, either

(Edited to add: I'm referring to post #8 in the subject line as it obviously wasn't clear enough which post I was referring to)

You're the one who got stuck into my reply and started this contretemps.

I wasn't referring to *you* anyway, it was abut what consareliars was saying in response to what *you* said.

You need to read my post in context and look at the date to understand how it refutes the assertion that "RAWA has been telling that same truth for decades".

[Hannah Bell]

18. your post #14 is in direct reply to mine. if you're speaking to someone else perhaps you'd better

reply to their post instead of mine.

The US brought the Taliban to power. And they fund them even now.

Not to mention the shadowy intelligence connections between all the players, including the US puppet Karzai, drug dealers & the like.


The US military doesn't give a damn about afghan women.

[Turborama]

20. This all started at #11 when you directly responded to my reply to consareliars

(I've edited post #17 to make it easier for you to understand)

The US did not bring the Taliban to power. You saying it doesn't make it so. You really need to take a step back and read about the history of the Taliban.

[Hannah Bell]

22. i gave you plenty of reading material. you gave me none but a wikipedia article --

which omits key periods & events.

[Hannah Bell]

23. 1998:

The US Bares its Fangs to its Flunkeys


Last night the world was astounded by the news of US missile strikes against targets in Afghanistan and the Sudan.

RAWA has in the past repeatedly warned that the US GOVERNMENT is no friend of the people of Afghanistan, primarily because during the past two decades she did not spare any effort or expense in training and arming the most sordid, the most treacherous, the most misogynic and anti-democratic indigenous Islamic fundamentalist gangs and innumerable crazed Arab fanatics in Afghanistan and in unleashing them upon our people. After the retreat of the Russian aggressors and the collapse of Najib's puppet regime in Afghanistan these fundamentalist entities became all the more wildly unbridled. They officially and wholeheartedly accepted the yoke of servitude to the interests of foreign governments, in which capacity they have perpetrated such crimes and atrocities against the people of Afghanistan that no parallel can be found in the history of any land on earth.

It is no secret that Afghan fundamentalists headed by Burhanuddin Rabbani, Karim Khalili, Rasul Sayyaf, Ahmad Shah Masoud, Golbuddin Hekmatyar, Yunis Khalis, Mullah Omar and associates such as Dostum and his like have all been nurtured in the lap of the CIA. It was the CIA that gave all these nobodies name and fame and supported them in their power-grabbing and fiefdom-building ploys and plots. Now the US is out to hunt down Osama bin Laden, an old Arab operative raised and trained by the CIA who is cohabiting with the Taliban and bankrolling the decimation of our compatriots in the Taliban's dog-fights with their Jihadi brethren-in-creed. The US made maximum use of Arab mercenaries in her dogged determination to undo her superpower rival, the Soviet Union, but now the old myrmidons have become too much of an ungrateful nuisance. The US is the ally and sponsor of quite a number of anti-democratic fundamentalist states and entities in the world, therefore the United States' quarrel with her protégés, whether Arabs or Taliban or Jihadis, is nothing but a "domestic" dispute between lord and vassal.

http://www.rawa.org/attack-e.htm


The United States, as the master player in this Great Chess Game and posing as the prime defender of democracy and human rights, replaced her Jihadi chessmen in our country with the mercenary Taliban band to further promote her regional interests. While strongly deploring the interference and lackey-breeding policies of Iran, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Uzbekistan, the United States and other countries towards Afghanistan, we believe that it is ridiculous to consider foreign interference in Afghanistan as the prime cause for the devastation of our country. Even the criminal fundamentalists make noises every now and then against foreign interference and attribute all their dog-fighting and perfidy to such meddling from abroad. Foreign interference is not the cause but the effect of the traitorous essence of criminal fundamentalists and mercenary warlords who with unparalleled insolence are ever ready and willing to put on the dog's collar of whatever foreign power who outdoes the others in its largesse of arms and dollars.

http://www.rawa.org/28april-e.htm

[Turborama]

26. "Funds" the Taliban

Notice how that's present tense? There's nothing in there saying how The US BROUGHT THE TALIBAN TO POWER.

Paul Fitzgerald and Elizabeth Gould are not CIA whistleblowers.

I'm sorry to shatter your delusions, but the ISI and Saudia Arabia were perfectly capable of helping the Taliban into power without needing the CIA's help.

[Hannah Bell]

28. funds now, funded then.

"ISI and Saudia Arabia were perfectly capable of helping the Taliban into power without needing the CIA's help."

not if the us didn't want them to.

however, it's documented fact that US intelligence & the us military *did* help them.

here's that list of refs you asked for:

http://www.isreview.org/issues/20/CIA_binladen_afghan.shtml


here's rawa in 1998 talking about cia involvement:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=8912456&mesg_id=8912759


here, since you're studiously avoiding the post, let me help you:

It is no secret that Afghan fundamentalists headed by Burhanuddin Rabbani, Karim Khalili, Rasul Sayyaf, Ahmad Shah Masoud, Golbuddin Hekmatyar, Yunis Khalis, Mullah Omar and associates such as Dostum and his like have all been nurtured in the lap of the CIA.

It was the CIA that gave all these nobodies name and fame and supported them in their power-grabbing and fiefdom-building ploys and plots. Now the US is out to hunt down Osama bin Laden, an old Arab operative raised and trained by the CIA who is cohabiting with the Taliban and bankrolling the decimation of our compatriots in the Taliban's dog-fights with their Jihadi brethren-in-creed.

The US made maximum use of Arab mercenaries in her dogged determination to undo her superpower rival, the Soviet Union, but now the old myrmidons have become too much of an ungrateful nuisance.

The US is the ally and sponsor of quite a number of anti-democratic fundamentalist states and entities in the world, therefore the United States' quarrel with her protégés, whether Arabs or Taliban or Jihadis, is nothing but a "domestic" dispute between lord and vassal.

[Turborama]

31. I didn't "studiously avoid" anything, I was composing the post I just added

(Edited to add. I was referring to post #29 in the subject line, in case you have trouble understanding what I meant)

"It is no secret that Afghan fundamentalists headed by Burhanuddin Rabbani, Karim Khalili, Rasul Sayyaf, Ahmad Shah Masoud, Golbuddin Hekmatyar, Yunis Khalis, Mullah Omar and associates such as Dostum and his like have all been nurtured in the lap of the CIA."

If it's "no secret" and it was so obvious, where's the evidence?

"It was the CIA that gave all these nobodies name and fame and supported them in their power-grabbing and fiefdom-building ploys and plots"

No specifics, which makes it a conspiracy theory. A bitter subjective one at that.

Thanks for the references. I can't see any CIA whistleblowers in there, though. Unless I'm missing something.

[Hannah Bell]

32. lol. one of the references (cited multiple times) is the same one the

wikipedia article you touted relies on heavily.

but the wikipedia article omits the important facts.

[Turborama]

34. Point me to the CIA whistleblower, please

Thanks in advance.

[Hannah Bell]

36. here's the book cited in your wikipedia article & in the article i linked.

supposedly his book is authoritative on the taliban:


How Saudi Arabia and the CIA Helped Give Rise to the Taliban

When the Soviets invaded Afghanistan in 1979, Saudi money joined with CIA money to fund the Wahhabi-inspired mujahideen in the fight against the Soviet. Pakistan was the conduit for that money. Pakistan's prime minister at the time, Zia ul Haq, decided who got what money, and doled it out through Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence, or ISI. It was mainly due to Zia's alliance with Islamic extremists in Pakistan that the Taliban was born in Pakistan's Madrassas. Zia wanted to build up an Islamic militia for two reasons: To use it to fight India in Kashmir, and to use it to impose Pakistani influence in Afghanistan. Among Zia's favorites: Gulbuddin Hikmetyar, who had studied engineering at Kabul University, and who today is the leader of Hizb el-Islami, or the Islamic Party, which is allied with the Taliban.

http://middleeast.about.com/od/afghanistan/fr/taliban-ahmed-rashid.htm

http://yalepress.yale.edu/yupbooks/book.asp?isbn=9780300089028


us/cia involvement with these characters isn't in dispute.

http://www.worldpress.org/1018afghanistan.htm

CARLSON: You're breaking news here, Congressman. I don't think this has ever been reported before in the United States.

MCDERMOTT: Oh, yes, it has been. We funded the Taliban through the Pakistanis, and all that money -- we could have cut off that money and stopped what was going on. We knew what was going on there. All we wanted was a stable, quiet Afghanistan so we could put a pipeline down through there. That's really what we were up to.

http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0209/10/cf.00.html

CIA AND ISI NURTURED MUJAHEDEEN AND TALIBAN
Paul Fitzgerald and Elizabeth Gould, a husband and wife team, began their experience in Afghanistan when they were the first American journalists to acquire permission to enter behind Soviet lines in 1981 for CBS News and produced a documentary, Afghanistan Between Three Worlds, for PBS. In 1983 they returned to Kabul with Harvard Negotiation project director Roger Fisher for ABC Nightline and contributed to the MacNeil/Lehrer News Hour. They are the authors of Invisible History: Afghanistan's Untold Story published by City Lights. I interviewed them about the roots of the conflict and the long standing cooperation of Pakistan's ISI and the CIA in encouraging and arming the Mujahedeen.

http://communities.canada.com/shareit/blogs/reality/archive/2010/08/03/cia-and-isi-nurtured-mujahideen-and-taliban.aspx.

[Turborama]

39. The conversation continued....

MCDERMOTT: It certainly is an improvement for the women of Afghanistan. But you've got to remember that of American policy, we put the Taliban there. We gave the money to the..

CARLSON: I beg your pardon?

MCDERMOTT: ... Pakistanis.

CARLSON: You're breaking news here, Congressman. I don't think this has ever been reported before in the United States.

MCDERMOTT: Oh, yes, it has been. We funded the Taliban through the Pakistanis, and all that money -- we could have cut off that money and stopped what was going on. We knew what was going on there. All we wanted was a stable, quiet Afghanistan so we could put a pipeline down through there. That's really what we were up to.

CARLSON: That's quite a -- That's quite a theory.

BLUNT: Paul, I know I'm not asking the questions, but during the eight years of the Clinton administration, do you think we funded the Taliban? Is that what Jim is saying here?

BEGALA: You have to ask the congressman.

MCDERMOTT: Our foreign policy has been a mess in Afghanistan from the point that we walked away from --

BLUNT: But did we fund it is a different question?

CARLSON: That's the allegation you made. Didn't he?

BEGALA: It's an important fact, under President Carter and then President Reagan, we funded the mujahedeen, the freedom fighters, as Charlie Wilson of Texas used to call them...

CARLSON: Mr. McDermott is making this your thesis...

BEGALA: ... some of them were Taliban.


CARLSON: Did President Clinton fund the Taliban? That's the allegation you made. Is it true?

MCDERMOTT: The United States government's policy of giving money to Pakistan and letting them take charge of whatever happens in Afghanistan essentially put us as the people behind it.

Interesting conversation, thanks for sharing it.

Paul Fitzgerald and Elizabeth Gould are journalists with a lot of experience in Afghanistan. There assertions may be true, they also may not. I'm interested in reading their book now you've pointed it out.


The 1st quote you gave is about CIA involvement with the "Wahhabi-inspired Mujahideen" and indirectly links them to the Taliban. It goes on to say....

For all of Zia's and the CIA's attempts to guide events, militias and mujahideens their way in Afghanistan (and, later, in Pakistan), both Zia's ISI and the CIA failed to understand the radical nature of the Taliban they were nurturing. "The Taliban interpretation of Islam, jihad and social transformation was an anomaly in Afghanistan because the movement's rise echoed none of the leading Islamicist trends that had emerged through the Anri-Soviet war. "They fitted nowhere in the Islamic spectrum of ideas and movements that had emerged in Afghanistan between 1979 and 1994," Rashid writes.

An interesting looking book, thanks for pointing out that one as well.

The thing is, all this points to the CIA indirectly assisting with the emergence of the Taliban. Also, there's no CIA whistleblowing about how heavily involved they were. Your original assertion was that "The US BROUGHT THE TALIBAN TO POWER." Implying we purposefully put them in place as a puppet government, which is not the case.

[Hannah Bell]

43. lol. goodbye, goodbye, goodbye.

[Chulanowa]

19. The Taliban don't need any US help to be demonized, ConsAre

All we've got to do is say what they do; it's fucked-up enough that any spin would just be wasted.

Damn right I'm concerned about "some human rights offense." I'm concerned about it going both ways, but I know that we have the ability and desire to stop ours, while I know that the Taliban has no such desire or incentive.

[ConsAreLiars]

46. You are quite right in all you say.

The point here is that evils perpetuated in the name of some religious or cultural or tribal belief system occur all over this sad planet, The ones that get hyped by the Hegemonic Powers That Be are the ones that help dampen any chance of their internal populations getting too empathetic toward the (other) victims of Corporate expansionism.

After bringing extremist religious ideologues into a dominant position within the previously moderate (ish) but very pre-enlightenment culture and land, the Great Gamers now use their presence and influence as a 'justification' for the occupation and some of the more gullible buy into that "white man's burden" type of argument.

[Chulanowa]

47. My logic is that, regardless of our entering the scenario being good or bad, there we are

for the record, I think our invasion was a bad idea. But again, no one asked my confirmation before we invaded, and now... there we are.

While we are there, we have an obligation to these people. After we leave, we will continue to have that obligation. Currently, that obligation involves keepign the civilians of Pakistan safe. We could definitely be doing a better job at that, no damn questions there. But ditching them - and for frankly abominable reasons like politics and money - is not something I can really swallow. But that seems to be exactly what a lot of my fellows here on the left want. "Well, Afghans, it's an election year, so, hey, fuck yourselves and your crazy moon-speak, kay? Toodles!"

I understand that this is not a popular or hip way of looking at things. But as far as I can figure, it's the most ethical approach.

[ConsAreLiars]

48. That's the "We broke it, we bought (own) it" argument.

It assumes that a foreign military and alien do-gooder culture warriors will somehow "improve" their society and reduce suffering. The other view, that of RAWA and mine, is interference from outside only entrenches and reinforces the most backward tendencies.

I had the good fortune to spend some time there (before the US began importing crazies), on the ground, in the mud/stick inns, among the people, far away from any fly-in tourism enclaves there might have been (I saw no hint of any such). Total culture shock, entering another dimension, but also a society undergoing a natural and peaceful evolution.

No burqa or face coverings for tribal nomads, urban sophisticates, foreign women. No retribution. Different strokes for different folks was a reality in the culture. Engels in 1850-60 called their culture moderate and tolerant. My companion and I were treated as welcome guests everywhere we went. The trend I saw continued but went off track, when the USSR tried to "help." There is no reason to think the US intervention will be any more destructive than that one. And every reason to believe trying to mould another culture into something more amenable to the powers doing it will cause only more suffering.

(edit some tiny stuff)

[LAGC]

3. K&R

But still at 6 recs. Someone must have Unrec'ed it while I was reading.

[Turborama]

4. The Taliban agree...

Taliban dismiss Time cover as 'desperate propaganda'
(AFP) – 6 hours ago

WASHINGTON — The Taliban have dismissed the use of a mutilated Afghan woman on a Time magazine cover as "desperate propaganda" and denied being the culprits, a US monitoring group said Monday.

The Taliban said Time was lying when it accused the group of slicing off 18-year-old Aisha's nose and ears after she fled her abusive in-laws in southern Uruzgan province last year.

"This desperate propaganda by Time magazine has shown the whole world the lengths which the world media will go to please America, even at the cost of their journalistic integrity," a Taliban spokesman said.

Independent US monitoring agency SITE said the English-language statement from the Taliban spokesman was posted on Saturday on the website of the group, which calls itself the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan.

Full article: http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5hVyU2pZmx-oNvP0P3My43OZkMDjw

[Hannah Bell]

6. The US BROUGHT THE TALIBAN TO POWER. The taliban was our ALLY.

The US is the No. 1 cause of the resurgence of fundamentalism in the middle east.

And TIME is an intelligence & propaganda asset of USA, INC.

[Turborama]

9. No, the Mujahideen were our ally until 1989 then we left them to it

We did not bring the Taliban to power: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taliban

Please don't try and rewrite history.

[Hannah Bell]

13. of course we did. it's you who's rewriting history.

[Turborama]

16. Oh yeah, please tell me how we brought the Taliban to power

The only way you could argue that is by blaming it on how we left Afghanistan to fall into multiple civil wars from 1989 onwards. A period of civil wars from which the Taliban emerged.

[Hannah Bell]

21. i already did. Here's more:

http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Afghanistan/Afghanistan_CIA_Taliban.html

http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:OgU6bhH3KJUJ:www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/new-us-envoy-to-kabul-lobbied-for-taliban-oil-rights-662688.html+us+taliban+madeline+albright&cd=8&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us

[Turborama]

24. 1st one is a blog full of hearsay with no references

In 1994, a new group, the Taliban (Pashtun for "students"), emerged on the scene. Its members came from madrassas set up by the Pakistani government along the border and funded by the U.S., Britain, and the Saudis, where they had received theological indoctrination and military training. Thousands of young men-refugees and orphans from the war in Afghanistan-became the foot soldiers of this movement:

=snip=

The U.S. government was well aware of the Taliban's reactionary program, yet it chose to back their rise to power in the mid-1990s. The creation of the Taliban was "actively encouraged by the ISI and the CIA," according to Selig Harrison, an expert on U.S. relations with Asia. "The United States encouraged Saudi Arabia and Pakistan to support the Taliban, certainly right up to their advance on Kabul," adds respected journalist Ahmed Rashid. When the Taliban took power, State Department spokesperson Glyn Davies said that he saw "nothing objectionable" in the Taliban's plans to impose strict Islamic law, and Senator Hank Brown, chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on the Near East and South Asia, welcomed the new regime: "The good part of what has happened is that one of the factions at last seems capable of developing a new government in Afghanistan." "The Taliban will probably develop like the Saudis. There will be Aramco , pipelines, an emir, no parliament and lots of Sharia law. We can live with that," said another U.S. diplomat in 1997.


If you want to believe a blog with no attributable references to back it up with that's up to you.


2nd one is an article which describes events after the Taliban came to power.

But in 1997, as a paid adviser to the oil multinational Unocal, he took part in talks with Taliban officials regarding the possibility of building highly lucrative gas and oil pipelines. He had drawn up a risk analysis report for the project that would have exploited the natural reserves of the region, estimated to be the world's second largest after the Persian Gulf.

At the same time, he urged the Clinton administration to take a softer line on the Taliban. By 1997 some of the regime's worst excesses had become public and Mr bin Laden was ensconced in Afghanistan. That year, the Secretary of State, Madeleine Albright, described the Taliban's abuses of human rights as "despicable".

-

The Wikipedia article I provided is full of references and if you think there's anything wrong with specifics you can bring them up with the authors in the discussion section or fill in the gaps yourself.

None of what you have provided proves that "The US BROUGHT THE TALIBAN TO POWER"

[Hannah Bell]

25. here's rawa. your favored source.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=8912456&mesg_id=8912759

[Turborama]

29. They're not my "favored source", just the one that began the discussion between me and consareliars

I like to get my opinions from more than just one source...

Afghan women leaders ask troops to stay -- for now

Submitted by cw4w on Thu, 2009-11-12 20:48

In Washington and London, politicians debate whether to send more troops to Afghanistan or pull out entirely. But Afghan women leaders have a different message: Give us stronger support from the troops and NGOs already here.

by Gayle Tzemach Lemmon, Daily Beast Contributor

=snip=

Uncertainty has marked the months since the Afghan campaign season began. Business investment has plunged and foreign donor decisions have been placed on hold until the security situation improves. From aid organizations deciding on next year's priorities to Afghans reluctant to spend cash they might need if the country sinks into chaos once more, everyone seems to be waiting to see what shape events will take. "Everyone thought that this election would bring change and a chance for the improvement and the development of the country, but the situation has made us hopeless," said Leeda Yacoubi, deputy director of Afghan Women's Network, an umbrella organization of women's groups which counts 65 members nationwide. "Before, donors were supporting long-term projects, but now they are three-month, four-month, six- month projects; they do not fully trust the situation in Afghanistan and they don't want to invest."

This, say Yacoubi and others, is a mistake. Despite the admittedly grave problems of corruption and insecurity plaguing their impoverished country, women leaders say Afghanistan has made real progress during the past eight years thanks to the presence of international troops. "Before 2001, Afghanistan was like a strainer: Anything you put in it fell to the bottom and right through the cracks," said Aziza, an entrepreneur with her own soccer ball manufacturing company. Aziza, who asked that we use only her first name for security reasons, shared her views while waiting for NATO staff to pick up an order for 3,000 soccer balls. "Now we are building
something, we are creating a foundation for this country."

=snip=

Even while some political activists and pundits in Washington and London sound the call for a full troop withdrawal, women here argue that a complete pullback would only exacerbate the battery of formidable problems plaguing their struggling nation. Though nearly all say the international community could have done a far better job in securing a teetering Afghanistan, where practically every citizen can now rattle off a personal tale of corruption, few women say they believe foreign forces should go. In a series of
conversations with a dozen women leaders spanning a range of sectors, from health care to business to politics, some of whom rarely speak to journalists, the consensus was that existing troops must stay for now-if only because things would be far worse were they to leave. Insecurity would rise, the Taliban would gain power, and women and girls would immediately lose ground.

"Pull out, get out, give up is not the way to solve Afghanistan's problems," Afghan parliamentarian Shukria Barakzai told The Daily Beast. She and several other women leaders say that while they are not convinced Afghanistan needs more American soldiers, there is no question the future of their country depends on those forces already there.

=snip=

In the end, the women say, it is up to the Americans alone to decide whether more troops are critical to their revised strategy. Many women are skeptical that they are. But they are also surprised to hear that restive publics in America and Europe are clamoring for all their soldiers in Afghanistan to come home. And they wonder if Westerners have forgotten why their forces came to the long-troubled country in the first place.

Full article: http://www.cw4wafghan.ca/news/afghan-women-leaders-ask-troops-stay-now

Eight Years On: The View From Afghan Women
Gayle Tzemach Lemmon
Posted: October 7, 2009 10:06 AM

Women in Afghanistan do not ask the United States to stay for the simple or sentimental reason of safeguarding their rights. They are the first ones to say that this is not enough of a reason for the world's remaining superpower to remain in their country. Nor do they favor an extended version of a long-term occupation: Afghans want to be able to govern and to provide for their own nation.

But they say over and over again that an Afghanistan left to fend for itself before it can stand on its own after eight years of an under-resourced reconstruction effort and alongside an increasingly bold insurgency will not long remain an isolated problem. It is certain to become the world's concern once more, they say, the only question is when. That, in many women's view, is the lesson of history, not the misapplied lesson of the Russian invasion. The majority of Afghans do not see the Americans as foreign occupiers who must be defeated. Instead, they are hungry for the Americans to step up and help them make their country safer, their government cleaner and their economy stronger. They are disappointed because the international community has done too little, not too much.

Women do not ask for protection of their rights simply because they are women; they seek assistance for their country simply because the stakes are too high -- for them and for the American public. Afghanistan's mothers and sisters and daughters are eager to build upon the gains that strengthened security, a weakened insurgency and a functioning state make possible; they want the Americans to help them get there, not just for their own children's sake, but because they know a return to the failed state of Taliban-governed Afghanistan will not end in peace. If the Taliban return to play host once more to forces like Al Qaeda, who use their country as a training camp and staging ground, they know the chances for Afghanistan's next generation will be lost. And that, they say, would be a tragic failure not just for their own nation, but for the world, which will once again be forced to come in, clean up and root out instead of getting the job done now, while there is still a chance of a more peaceful ending, despite all the problems.

"You cannot expect so much change in one or two or even five years," says Dr. Noorkhanoom, a female doctor who has overseen maternal health programs for the Swiss NGO Terre des Hommes since the Taliban took Kabul in 1996. "I hope the international community will continue to support us; they left us once and they saw the negative results. If this country is secure, the region will be secure. If they leave this country again, it will be a crime."

Full article: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/gayle-tzemach/eight-years-on-the-view-f_b_312324.html

AFGHANISTAN: WOMEN STRIVE TO MAKE VOICES HEARD IN STRATEGIC DEBATE
Aunohita Mojumdar 10/07/09

=cut=

"Demilitarization is not practical in the current situation," well-known activist Suraya Parlika said, pointing to the deteriorating security situation. "Look at what is happening in Helmand and Kandahar. Violence is now spreading to northern Afghanistan. At this time we cannot think of demilitarization. We have to first create conditions that pave the way for demilitarization."

The stance of the Afghan participants took other meeting delegations by surprise. The conference was ostensibly designed to promote a "peace trialogue" among women from Afghanistan, Pakistan and India. The widespread assumption heading into the meeting was that Afghan women would support the idea of an immediate withdrawal of foreign forces from the country. Indeed, the Afghan barrage of support for a continued strong foreign troop presence came in response to Indian participants’ suggestions that Afghan women should call for a speedy withdrawal.

A visiting delegation of Code Pink, a US-based anti-war women’s group, was also in Kabul to lobby local women to call for a fast American military exit. But following discussions with Afghan activists, Code Pink representatives admitted that their stance might need to be adjusted. Code Pink’s Jodie Evans and Medea Benjamin said that while they still wanted the Obama Administration to work towards an exit strategy, they were reconsidering their calls for a two-year withdrawal timeline.

"We have been feeling a sense of fear of the people of the return of the Taliban. So many people saying that, ’If the US troops left, the country would collapse; we’d go into civil war.’ A palpable sense of fear is making us start to reconsider," Benjamin told EurasiaNet.

Full article: http://www.eurasianet.org/departments/insightb/articles/eav100709.shtml

'Code Pink' rethinks its call for Afghanistan pullout

In Afghanistan, the US women's activist group finds that their Afghan counterparts want US troop presence – as well as more reconstruction.

Kabul, Afghanistan
When Medea Benjamin stood up in a Kabul meeting hall this weekend to ask Masooda Jalal if she would prefer more international troops or more development funds, the cofounder of US antiwar group Code Pink was hoping her fellow activist would support her call for US troop withdrawal.

She was disappointed.

Ms. Jalhal, the former Afghan minister of women, bluntly told her both were needed. "It is good for Afghanistan to have more troops – more troops committed with the aim of building peace and against war, terrorism, and security – along with other resources," she answered. "Coming together they will help with better reconstruction."

Rethinking their position

Code Pink, founded in 2002 to oppose the US invasion of Iraq, is one of the more high-profile women's antiwar groups being forced to rethink its position as Afghan women explain theirs: Without international troops, they say, armed groups could return with a vengeance – and that would leave women most vulnerable.

Though Afghans have their grievances against the international troops' presence, chief among them civilian casualties, many fear an abrupt departure would create a dangerous security vacuum to be filled by predatory and rapacious militias. Many women, primary victims of such groups in the past, are adamant that international troops stay until a sufficient number of local forces are trained and the rule of law established.

Full article: http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Asia-South-Central/2009/1006/p06s10-wosc.html

[Hannah Bell]

30. And you were WRONG. RAWA had, in fact, been speaking out against the US for over a decade.

And had explicitly stated that the Taliban was a US creation.

Not that i expect you to admit it.

[Turborama]

33. Why would I admit that I was wrong when I wasn't? She said "Decades"

Let's recap...


ConsAreLiars

RAWA has been telling that same truth for decades.

-

By "truth" she's referring to your assertion that: "They're more concerned about women wearing the wrong clothes than that they might be bombed, tortured, dispossessed, made refugee, lose their husbands, families, children.

their husbands & fathers being cast as the "oppressors" who put them in burkas, their mothers as the "oppressors" who cut their genitals -- while the invader is cast as a savior who will remove them from all these "oppressors" -- one way or another."


-

My post refutes consareliars' assertion that "RAWA has been telling that same truth for decades".

ME

RAWA statement, April 19,1999


The stench of barbarism, mediaevalism and misogyny emanating from the Taliban has recently become so pronounced that even the president of the United States felt it necessary to raise his voice and condemn the Taliban's policies as a "terrible perversion of Islam" and to add that the Taliban's treatment of women and children in Afghanistan is atrocious.

According to the NNI News Agency (April 17, 1999) the Taliban have, through their "ambassador" in Islamabad Maulavi Sayed-ur-Rahman Haqqani, countered Mr Clinton's remarks with pronouncements so utterly ridiculous and deceitful that any objective, level-headed observer who still needs to be convinced would be rewarded with a remarkable insight into the brazenness and hopeless ignorance of the fundamentalists.

The distinguished Taliban "ambassador" claims that "one hundred per cent of Afghan women are happy

with Taliban policies". The sheer shamelessness of this lie! What person in his or her right mind would be able to believe that Afghan women who

- are penned up like sheep in the recesses of their homes

- are deprived of the right to education and to work outside the house

- are barred from seeking medical attention -even if they themselves or their children perish of hunger or for want of medical care

- are compelled through extreme impoverishment to sell off their dear children

- do not have the right to use all-women public bath-houses in conditions where few homes have bathing facilities

- are insulted and humiliated and flogged for not wearing clothes in accordance with Taliban tastes

- whose only staunch and intrepid organisation (RAWA) is daily the target of blood-curdling terrorist threats

--who, in his or her right mind and living day in and day out with hundreds of such senseless infringements on individual rights and liberties under Taliban domination would still support the Taliban's trademark policy of the gallows, the whip and systematic humiliation of the population at large? Only those of Taliban moral and intellectual calibre would be capable of such an insult to humanity. If nothing else, the determined and intrepid struggle waged by RAWA and the participation of hundreds of women in RAWA-staged demonstrations and gatherings are a sufficient slap-in-the-mouth to the Taliban mouthing such painful, yet hilarious, claims.

Full statement: http://www.rawa.org/lies.htm

[Hannah Bell]

37. oh, for god's sake. "the same truth" = the truth that the US uses phoney concern over

human rights to justify its murderous presence in afghanistan.

and that the muslim fundie murderers are creatures of the us.

[Name removed]

45. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Turborama]

35. I also take Human Rights Watch's research very seriously...

Not sure if you've come across this yet....

"Leave your job or we will cut your head off" -With violence on the rise, Afghan women are terrified
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=433x377170

-

[Hannah Bell]

38. you're hopeless, goodbye.

[Turborama]

40. Studiously ignoring the contents of posts #29 & #35 before you go?

OK, bye then. :hi:

[Hannah Bell]

41. goalpost moving = dishonest discussant.

[Turborama]

44. No goalpost moving at all and I'm totally honest about my opinions.

You stated that RAWA were my "favored source". I replied using multiple sources to show what my "favored sources" actually are.

You, however, are ignoring what those sources say because it goes against your narrative about what Afghan women want. Which, apparently, is solely based on what RAWA say. Much as you'd like them to be, RAWA are not the only female voices in Afghanistan that should be considered.

[Hannah Bell]

27. the references are at the original source.

http://www.isreview.org/issues/20/CIA_binladen_afghan.shtml

1 For historical background on Afghanistan, see Raja Anwar, The Tragedy of Afghanistan (New York: Verso, 1988); Gérard Chaliand, Report from Afghanistan (New York: Penguin Books, 1982); Jonathan Neale, "The Afghan tragedy," International Socialism, Spring 1981; and Olivier Roy, Islam and Resistance in Afghanistan (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1986).

2 The British government has issued a document claiming to "prove" bin Laden’s guilt, but the supposed evidence is extremely weak. See Robert Fisk, "This loose conjecture is unlikely to cut much ice with the Arab nations," Independent (London), October 5, 2001.

3 "A bitter harvest," Economist, September 13, 2001.

4 Chaliand, pp. 37—38.

5 According to Fred Halliday, who at the time was a supporter of the PDPA, "the roots of the rebellion lie within Afghan society itself and in the reaction of the rural population to the imposition of reforms from the centre." The Making of the Second Cold War (New York: Verso, 1983), p. 155

6 New York Times, July 1, 1978. Cited in William Blum, Killing Hope: U.S. Military and CIA Interventions since World War II (Monroe, Maine: Common Courage Press, 1995), p. 341.

7 Chaliand, pp. 39—40.

8 Chaliand, p. 41.

9 Washington Post, May 11, 1979. Cited in Blum, Killing Hope.

10 Lawrence Lifschultz, "Afghan negotiations: Can the pieces fit into place?" Nation, May 31, 1986, p. 753.

11 Blum, Killing Hope, p. 344.

12 Robert M. Gates, From the Shadows: The Ultimate Insider’s Story of Five Presidents and How They Won the Cold War (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1996).

13 La Nouvel Observateur (France), January 15—21, 1998. A classified State Department document–one of many found during the November 1979 takeover of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran and later made public–reveals that the aid began at least as early as June, before Carter’s directive. See Blum, Killing Hope, p. 435. Tim Weiner claims that the CIA had begun training guerrillas in Pakistan in 1978. See Weiner, Blank Check: The Pentagon’s Black Budget (New York: Warner Books, 1990), pp. 145—46.

14 Blum, Killing Hope, p. 347. This was another of the documents from the Tehran Embassy. The report continued, "The overthrow of the DRA would show the rest of the world, particularly the Third World, that the Soviets’ view of the socialist course of history as being inevitable is not accurate."

15 San Francisco Chronicle, August 4, 1979. Cited in Blum, Killing Hope.

16 Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey St. Clair, Whiteout: The CIA, Drugs and the Press (New York: Verso, 1998), pp. 257—58.

17 Washington Post, February 15, 1980. The article claims that "U.S. covert aid prior to the December invasion, according to sources, was limited to funneling small amounts of medical supplies and communications equipment to scattered rebel tribes, plus what is described as ‘technical advice’ to the rebels about where they could acquire arms on their own." Quoted in Blum, Killing Hope, p. 344.

18 Washington Post, January 13, 1985. Quoted in Blum, Killing Hope, p. 345. Blum suggests the unnamed official may also have been Stansfield Turner.

19 Quoted in Cockburn and St. Clair, p. 258.

20 Washington Post, January 13, 1985. Quoted in Blum, Killing Hope, p. 345.

21 Cockburn and St. Clair, p. 263.

22 Weiner, p. 149. Quoted in Blum, Killing Hope.

23 Dilip Hiro, "The cost of an Afghan ‘victory,’" Nation, February 15, 1999.

24 La Nouvel Observateur, interview.

25 Steve Coll, "Anatomy of a victory: CIA’s covert Afghan war," Washington Post, July 19, 1992.

26 Blum, Killing Hope, p. 345, citing classified State Department documents from the Tehran Embassy.

27 Quoted in Cockburn and St. Clair, p. 259.

28 Coll, "Anatomy of a victory."

29 That same month, Reagan met in Washington with Abdul Haq, one of the mujahideen leaders. At a time when he was denouncing Nelson Mandela’s African National Congress for its refusal to renounce violence, Reagan heaped praise on Haq, who openly took responsibility for terrorist acts such as planting a bomb in the Kabul airport in 1984 that killed 28 people. Haq also met with British prime minister Margaret Thatcher.

30 Coll, "Anatomy of a victory."

31 Coll, "Anatomy of a victory."

32 Coll, "In CIA’s covert Afghan war, where to draw the line was key," Washington Post, July 20, 1992.

33 Ahmed Rashid, Taliban: Militant Islam, Oil, and Fundamentalism in Central Asia (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2000), p. 130.

34 D. Ian Hopper, "U.S. sent guns to bin Laden in 1980s," Associated Press, October 16, 2001.

35 Michael Moran, "Bin Laden comes home to roost," MSNBC, August 24, 1998. For CIA denials of connections to bin Laden see, for instance, Debra Saunders, "Bin Laden is not our Frankenstein," San Francisco Chronicle, October 2, 2001; and Charles M. Sennott, "American troops face being killed by a gift from the CIA," Boston Globe, September 23, 2001. For much more on the CIA—bin Laden connection, see John K. Cooley, Unholy Wars: Afghanistan, America, and International Terrorism, 2nd ed. (Sterling, Va.: Pluto Press, 2000).

36 Rahul Bedi, "Why? An attempt to explain the unexplainable," Jane’s Information Group, September 14, 2001, available on the Web at www.janes.com.

37 Hiro, "The cost of an Afghan ‘victory.’"

38 Blum, Rogue State: A Guide to the World’s Only Superpower, chapter 2 (Monroe, Maine: Common Courage Press, 2000).

39 Los Angeles Times, August 4, 1996.

40 Peter Marsden, The Taliban: War, Religion, and the New Order in Afghanistan (New York: Zed Books, 1988), pp. 36—42.

41 Tim Weiner, "Blowback from the Afghan battlefield," New York Times, March 13, 1994. Weiner points out that "Hekmatyar’s weapons...come mainly from the enormous arsenal sent by the CIA. The United States and its allies gave him more than $1 billion in armaments: tens of thousands of assault rifles and rocket-propelled grenades, millions of rounds of ammunition, hundreds of the deadly accurate Stinger missiles." Hekmatyar’s forces were not dislodged until March 1995.

42 Rashid, p. 32. Rashid’s book in particular is vital reading for anyone who wants to understand the roots of the current crisis.

43 In addition to Marsden’s book, see Michael Griffin, Reaping the Whirlwind: The Taliban Movement in Afghanistan (Sterling, Va.: Pluto Press, 2001).

44 Quoted in Sanjay Suri, "CIA worked with Pakistan to create Taliban," India Abroad News Service, March 6, 2001.

45 Quoted in "U.S. gave silent blessing to Taliban rise to power: analysts," Agence-France Presse, October 7, 2001. For further discussion of U.S. support for the Taliban, see Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed, "Afghanistan, the Taliban and the United States: The role of human rights in Western foreign policy," available at on the International Socialist Organization’s Web site at www.internationalsocialist.org/Afghanistan.shtml.

46 Rashid, p. 166.

47 Rashid, p. 179.

48 Marjorie Cohn, "Cheney’s black gold: Oil interests may drive U.S. foreign policy," Chicago Tribune, August 10, 2000.

49 Rashid, part 3. The main players have included the United States, Russia, China, Iran, and the European Union.

50 The consortium also included Saudi-based Delta Oil, Pakistan’s Crescent Group, and Russia’s Gazprom. Unocal’s chief competitor was the Argentinean oil company Bridas. See Rashid, chapters 12 and 13, for details.

51 The phrase is Rashid’s.

52 "U.S. gave silent blessing to Taliban rise to power."

53 John Burns, "State Department becomes cooler to the new rulers of Kabul," New York Times, October 23, 1996.

54 Cooley, p. 220. Following this attack, Unocal finally withdrew from the pipeline project.

55 Laura Flanders, "Out of the past," WorkingForChange, September 25, 2001, available on their Web site at www.workingforchange.com. Even after the imposition of sanctions, the U.S. government looked for ways to reestablish a relationship with the Taliban. Earlier this year, the Bush administration praised the Taliban for cracking down on opium production in some areas and awarded it a $43 million grant. See Robert Scheer, "CIA’s tracks lead in disastrous circle," Los Angeles Times, September 17, 2001.


and the newspaper article i linked you to backs up the unocal material.


how about those rawa statements from 1998, eh?

[nightrain]

42. knr. watch "Rethink Afghanistan" for a more accurate picture of the

devastation. Horrifying.