[lbo-talk] a reminder

Doug Henwood dhenwood at panix.com
Sun Oct 11 06:43:16 PDT 2009


[with Afghanistan in the news again, it's always bracing to revisit this observation from almost 30 years ago - posted by Dennis Perrin]

http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/2001/2001-September/017976.html

From the January 21, 1980 Press Clips column in the Village Voice. "We all have to go one day, but pray God let it not be over Afghanistan. An unspeakable country filled with unspeakable people, sheepshaggers and smugglers, who have furnished in their leisure hours some of the worst arts and crafts ever to penetrate the occidental world.

"I yield to none in my sympathy to those prostrate beneath the Russian jackboot, but if ever a country deserved rape it's Afghanistan. Nothing but mountains filled with barbarous ethnics with views as medieval as their muskets, and unspeakably cruel too . . .

"Your Afghan's idea of a jolly good party is to cut off the balls of his foe, stuff them in his mouth and leave him as an object of derision in the local square. The British found this out, as they retreated pellmell across the passes, and so too has Ivan."



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