More Michael Parenti Re: Deserving Americans

[Dennis Perrin]

>     From Larry Goodson, "Afghanistan's Endless War."
>     Pg. 5, talkng about the Soviet-Afghan War from '78
> to
> '89. "Nearly 2 million Afghans have been killed so
> far, (as well as 15,000 Soviet soldiers), and 600,000
> to 2,000,000 wounded. More than 6 million Afghans fled
> to Iran and Pakistan, creating the worlds largest
> refugee population since 1981, while 2 million Afghans
> were internally displaced. Thus more than 50 % of
> Afghanistans indigeous population (estimated at 15-17
> million at war's beginning, now estimated to be 22
> million) became casulties, killed, wounded or
> refugees.
>    From the next paragraph, "The Soviet Army and the
> Afghan communist government planted an estimated
> 30,000,000 land mines throughout the country, most of
> them completely unmarked and unmarked. Afghanistan's
> natural resources, particularly the natural gas
> reserves near Shiberghan, flowed north to the Soviet
> Union in the 80's and Afghanistan's economy
> collapsed."
>    Pg. 57, "In the early spring of 1979 war came to
> the cities of Afghanistan, In mid-March there was a
> general uprising in Herat. More than 100 Soviets were
> reportedly hunted down and killed in savage violence
> that claimed 3 thousand to 5 thousand lives....The
> government in Kabul felt the pressure generated by the
> uprisings in the countryside, particularly the savage
> fighting in Herat and the defection of its troops in
> Jalalabad [previous paragraph said Afghan Army
> strength went from 80,000 to 30,000 from late '78 to
> spring '79). In April Afghan government troops with
> Soviet advisors massacred 1,170 men and boys in Kerala
> village in Kunar, near the border with Pakistan."


> Michael Pugliese

Yes, yes -- but did they bomb any weddings?

DP