Downing Street Says » Afghanistan

Put to him that President Karzai gave an interview over the weekend in which he said the UK needed to get off the fence and get tough with Pakistan about insurgency within Afghanistan, the PMOS that in the course of the Prime Minister’s discussions with President Musharraf when he last visited and in their regular contacts, they had talked about the need to counter terrorism on both sides of the border. The Pakistani Government had made inroads into terrorism on its side of the border, but we obviously encouraged them to do more.

Put to him that the United States seemed to be saying over the weekend that the only way to stop the Taliban from coming in from Pakistan to Afghanistan would be to fire at them across the border, and would this be discussed at President Karzai’s meeting with the Prime Minister later in the week, the PMOS replied that in terms of discussions, it would be a matter raised with the President.

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This report is the most comprehensive (and devastating) account of the travesty in Afghanistan which passes for part of ‘the war on terror’. As can be clearly seen, from the eye-witness accounts alone, this is a war of terror. The indiscriminate nature of the ‘counterinsurgency’ measures has been clear for some time to anyone who looks beyond the official spin. Bombings of villages which kill ‘terrorists’ or ‘ dozens of Taliban’ are often massacres of villagers who may or may not include some Taliban. If you follow objective reports and sources (Xinua is one of the few) or local accounts, which are rare, it is clear that the same cavalier approach is adopted to ‘collateral’ damage as that in Iraq. The Americans are particularly guilty, but RAF aircraft have also bombed civilians in Afghanistan and examples abound but are rarely, for reasons of terrain and personal danger, followed up by the western press. The practice of ‘spray and pray’, a disgusting US military term for shooting at anyone and everyone in the vicinity of a bomb attack, is as live in Afghanistan as it is in Fallujah, Najaf, Samarra and Baghdad. The occupation is the reason for the resistance of the Taliban now and as the NATO forces escalate their violence against the population so the population will increase its support for the Taliban. This has all been said before, but never in as detailed and illustrative fashion as in this report. Pass it on.

<a href="http://www.senliscouncil.net/">http://www.senliscouncil.net/</a>
Comment by tony — 15 Feb 2007 on 10:41 pm | Link
It doesn’t help that the "president" of Afghanistan is a former employee of Unocal and as obvious a US stooge as ever existed. The "war on terra" is, as you point out, nothing of the sort, but a war OF terror. It should probably more aptly be called "the war of justification", because that’s what it really is, an excuse for constant military action and to justify curtailing civil liberties.
Comment by SmokeNMirrors — 18 Feb 2007 on 5:39 pm | Link

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» Monday, February 12, 2007

Afghanistan

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