| Submit your comments on this article |
| Pilger on the war... |
| 2002-07-05 |
| From The Mirror, by the Learned Mr Pilger. I couldn't resist... Since last October, Afghan leaders have reported American aircraft destroying villages "too small to be marked on any map" with "more than 300 people killed" in one night. In a family of 40, only a small boy and his grandmother survived, reported Richard Lloyd Parry of the Independent. We used teeny-tiny bombs, too small to be seen with the naked eye to destroy the villages that were too teeny-tiny to be marked on any map. They were inhabited by teeny-tiny people, too, so small that munchkins used to come by and beat them up. It was really a mercy... Out of sight of the television cameras "at least 3,767 civilians were killed by US bombs between October 7 and December 10...an average of 62 innocent deaths a day", according to a study carried out at the University of New Hampshire in the US. This is now estimated to have passed 5,000 civilian deaths: almost double the number killed on September 11. It's Marc Herold again. If you repeat a lie often enough, some people will come to believe it. It's not dead yet? There is no evidence that a single leader of al-Qaeda has been captured or, to anyone's knowledge, killed. Neither has the leader of the Taliban. The change in Afghanistan is minimal compared with the murderous feudalism that ruled during the 1990s, and before the Taliban came to power. Who's the Abu Zubaydah fellow we have? Something about him being Binny's successor? Howcome he doesn't count? And then there's that bunch of dead guys who were impersonating al-Qaeda. Really, they should sue. For all the cosmetic changes in Kabul, the capital, women still dare not go unveiled. "The Taliban used to hang the victim's body in public for four days," quipped the new American-installed regime's Minister of Justice. "We will only hang the body for a short time, say fifteen minutes, after a public execution." So how can you claim that's not an improvement? Surely you're not claiming there's no one in Afghanistan worth hanging? |
| Posted by:Fred Pruitt |
| #3 At the tail end of the recent war, Northern Alliance principals chose to deliver Taleban parties, an armistice. In other words, the nominal "allied" indulgence of an armed peace, has allowed the same enemy to continue its aggression by other means. I don't think that people will ever learn that winning a limited war means: you put yourself in a position where you will have to wage total war on the same enemy. |
| Posted by: RG Fulton 2002-07-05 23:30:40 |
| #2 Sure there are folks worth hanging in Afghanisan. Look at all them Merkuns! Peace-loving peoples at the Mirror and Guardian would love to hang Merkuns. And only Merkuns. |
| Posted by: Steve White 2002-07-05 13:03:33 |
| #1 "Y'know... I can't help but feel a certain "Hue Massacre" sentimnet underlying Pilger's screed. No doubt about it--the quality of this propaganda is beyond me, and it's obviously useless to attempt to argue against it or even discuss it. But--I do feel a certain "Hue Massacre" mentality underlying it. And I find it frightening. I can easily picture him clubbing "evil" Yanks (or even "Yankee puppets" [to use ancient, slightly-dated Leftist jargon])to death and dumping the bodies contemptuously in mass graves. Pilger--and anyone who takes him seriously--is beyond moral hope. Be warned, however--the Communist perpetrators of the Hue Massacre (committed during the 1968 Tet Offensive) have thus far eluded justice. And most of the Western Leftists and Anti-Americans who bear [at least] moral responsibility for the success of the Communists remain unrepentant, and guys like Pilger (and his fanbase) are a part of this longrunning phenomenon. These guys "won" once--and there's no reason to think they won't "win" again. In a sense, Al-Qaeda, the Jihad-fascists, and the Masssacre of 9/11 are bastard children of their's. I must confess I'm at a loss on suggestions of how to deal with these people. While the "Pilgers" of this world consititute a "community" whose members always reinforce each other's mindset, they still reach out [unceasingly] to the mainstream. From what little I can see, most of us on the blogosphere only seem to be talking to oursleves, preaching to the choir so to speak. There is no use trying to argue--or even mock--the Pilgers; but their propaganda memes are deadly cultural viruses that must somehow be quarantined. The good thing about LGF and other blogs is that they provide a way to survey the spread of the epidemic, but what about quarantine? Treatment? Cure?" |
| Posted by: Jay 2002-07-07 14:14:17 |
