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| Fifth Column |
| Fisk sez expect Afghanistan will be a quagmire |
| 2001-09-18 |
Even if the Americans penetrated Afghanistan, their shells would only plough over the ruins. The Russians tried to destroy the Taliban's predecessors with 10 years of bombing, destroying whole villages, with their people, farm animals, fields, trees and mud huts. And still they could not get rid of the mujahedin, still they could not --Â to use Mr Bush's inappropriately folksy phrase -- "smoke them out of their holes''. With Pakistan as its only, broken ally among Afghanistan's neighbours, with no friends inside the country and 10 million hidden land mines lying across its mountains and fields and cities, Mr Bush's "crusade'' looks more than dangerous. We are now being told that the United States is no longer afraid to take casualties. America, the President says, will have to accept losses. He'd better be right. |
| Posted by:Fred Pruitt |