|| -----Original Message-----
|| From: Michael Pugliese
||
||
|| Found via this right-wing website I just found,
|| http://www.americanvoiceinstitute.org
|| http://www.americanvoiceinstitute.org/DailyNewsBriefing01-10-02.htm#5
|| Villagers, U.S. At Odds Over Lethal Bombing
|| Residents Say Al Qaeda, Taliban Were Never There
||
I posted a story from The Times on this on Monday (subject:RE: Terrorism, Reaction, and Possible Competing Imperialisms, was Re: Robert Wade). Three interesting points emerge:
1 - You might remember Pasha Khan Zadran from that meeting of the warlords with Kofi Annan's representative Francesc Vendrell where the grounds were laid for the Bonn talks. He wasn't the one waving that sword but the surreally fearsome character with sideburns, handlebars, and connected eyebrows. Well, Zadran now appears to be the warlord who is most energetically using his CIA-donated satellite phone to call down airstrikes on rivals. He called in the strike that totalled the convoy of Paktia elders allied with Karzai, and survivors of the Qala-i Niyazi bombing say he's behind this one too. Zadran rules Khost and is demanding that Paktia be turned over to him.
2 - According to tne UN representative who investigated Qala-i Niyazi, US helicopters strafed women and children fleeing the bombing. You can blame Zadran for giving the bombers the wrong coordinates but you can't blame him for that. There are still some forms of aerial terror warfare that require the terrorist-pilot to actually see his victims and strafing is one of them.
3 - CNN has actually done some journalism on this:
Hakki
http://www.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0201/08/gal.00.html GREENFIELD AT LARGE
Truth and Shifty Loyalties in Afghanistan Aired January 8, 2002 - 23:01 ET
(...)
RICHARD MYERS, JOINT CHIEFS OF STAFF CHMN.: I don't know how many times we've stood up here and said, "This is a dangerous places that allegiances sometimes change, and that you've got to be very, very careful." And our people on the ground are probably some of the smartest in that regard.
GREENFIELD: But just today came news from "USA Today" that some U.S. air strikes may have killed innocent civilians because informants had supplied targets that had nothing to do with al Qaeda, everything to do with fulfilling personal grudges.
So if the hunt for bin Laden and other al Qaeda requires putting more troops on the ground, who are they supposed to trust for information, for watching their backs? And in the long run, what happens to the U.S. mission, to the entire country, if the rival Afghan tribes now cooperating with the U.S. decide that peace and stability are bad for business? (...)