Article

2005-10-12 Afghanistan-Pak-India

A front-row seat in the plodding war on the Taliban

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Posted by Seafarious 2005-10-12 11:04|| || Front Page|| [2 views since 2007-05-07] Top

#1 Patrolling the endless tiny villages of rural Afghanistan truly re-defines iron man sport. What the correspondent misses by just going out with the pickets, is the real purpose of the exercise: shmoozing with the locals.

The US forces go out of their way to convey what every Afghan admires: a rich and very generous, powerful and overwhelmingly strong warlord. A warlord of warlords. And yet they always come in respect and bearing precious gifts. They ask for nothing in return, needing nothing. But if the Afghans wish to share information about their mutual enemies, then the generocity of the Americans is beyond belief. Quite literally.

An Afghan knows that he may risk his life by giving information, but by doing so, he may get the wealth of a dozen years of hard work. Just by the good fortune of having Americans around, he does not have to do the back-breaking labor of digging a meagre water well, instead getting a good well that will last for generations. For Americans seem to enjoy digging water wells, as they do it everywhere they go.

Posted by Anonymoose 2005-10-12 12:01|| 2005-10-12 12:01|| Front Page Top

#2 Fascinating perspective, Anonymoose.:-) But even if less than perfect, this series of articles from the Christian Science Monitor, whose reports are referenced often by National Public Radio and other news media, marks the winning of a battle with the mainstream media. Perhaps one day we'll win that war.

Posted by trailing wife 2005-10-12 12:52|| 2005-10-12 12:52|| Front Page Top

#3 Well, I think the MSM is trying to migrate its embarassment into a "good war/bad war" dichotomy. Saying that they were actually *for* Afghanistan from the beginning, because it's such an obvious winner; and yet keeping their anti-war mantra up against Iraq.

They really were rattled by the first Afghan elections. It shook a lot of them to their bones. So now they are trying to have their cake and eat it, too. Most of them are still in the denial phase about Afghanistan, refusing to even mention it.

But I would never confuse this with their "coming around" to the big picture idea. They would have to renounce far too much to do that.

Posted by Anonymoose 2005-10-12 14:21|| 2005-10-12 14:21|| Front Page Top

#4 Interesting comments... I think that MSM stalwarts like WaPo are inviting the occasional OpEd piece from non-Moonbats - such as the one that set me off the other day. First, I don't think they could write a balanced piece - they're too entrenched and awash in Kool Aid, themselves and it provides distance to maintain their "liberal" and "progressive" credentials. Second, it begins to open the window a bit to allow them to pretend to be "balanced" and merely reporting, not driving an agenda. Of course they presume we're all fools out here in flyover America - and don't notice the 50-1 ratio of crap to fact. Just beginning to cover their "bets".

It will be interesting to see what they do if the Iraqis pass the constitution - and actually begin to function as a republic. A WaPo Int'l desk Editor was on Fox this morning - and admitted passage would be huge, a major chip for Bush. He even opined that it would "make" Bush's presidency. He didn't acknowledge that this, and more, had already transpired in Afghanistan, of course. Can't expect him to actually be honest and balanced, merely to try to appear to be so.

Posted by .com 2005-10-12 14:50|| 2005-10-12 14:50|| Front Page Top

#5 The Bush presidency was made the day the first "operatives" arrived in Afghanistan. The MSM is loath to say so. 8 years of Clintons refusal to do anything of note in the war that AQ was waging on us.

Posted by Sock Puppet OÂ´ Doom 2005-10-12 18:40|| 2005-10-12 18:40|| Front Page Top

#6 SPO'D, you're right on the money there.

When those airliners destroyed the twin towers I said to myself "This Bush guy had better do something about these mutha farkers!"

He did. And I've supported him ever since. Pretty much.

Posted by Parabellum 2005-10-12 19:09|| 2005-10-12 19:09|| Front Page Top

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