Afghanistan: The Promise and the Reality Reckless Soldiers, Slappers and Smack By Yvonne Ridley in Afghanistan
I have now spent several days in Afghanistan as an unembedded journalist, travelling around freely without an armed or military escort.
Of course moronic comments by the likes of Commander Jeff Bender, a US forces spokesman, don’t help. After the Kandahar wedding attack he said: "The coalition and Afghan authorities are investigating reports of non-combatant casualties in the village of Wech Baghtu.
"If innocent people were killed in this operation, we apologise and express our condolences to the families and the people of Afghanistan." What does he mean “if innocent people were killed”. It seems this US insensitivity isn’t just confined to the uniformed grunts at the Torkham border. Does Commander Jeff Bender think that the 33 dead women and children his warplanes wiped out were enemy combatants?
Scores of Afghans have been killed in American air strikes this year, fuelling the resentment against the presence of foreign troops and widening the rift between President Karzai and his western puppet masters.
The only winners emerging from Afghanistan these days are the drug barons who preside over the world’s largest heroin trade and the pimps who control the Chinese prostitutes operating from the scores of bordellos and brothels which have emerged since the US military occupation.
Of course moronic comments by the likes of Commander Jeff Bender, a US forces spokesman, don’t help. After the Kandahar wedding attack he said: "The coalition and Afghan authorities are investigating reports of non-combatant casualties in the village of Wech Baghtu.
"If innocent people were killed in this operation, we apologise and express our condolences to the families and the people of Afghanistan." What does he mean “if innocent people were killed”. It seems this US insensitivity isn’t just confined to the uniformed grunts at the Torkham border. Does Commander Jeff Bender think that the 33 dead women and children his warplanes wiped out were enemy combatants?
Scores of Afghans have been killed in American air strikes this year, fuelling the resentment against the presence of foreign troops and widening the rift between President Karzai and his western puppet masters.
The only winners emerging from Afghanistan these days are the drug barons who preside over the world’s largest heroin trade and the pimps who control the Chinese prostitutes operating from the scores of bordellos and brothels which have emerged since the US military occupation.
posted by temporal at 11/10/2008
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