Annals of the Damned Human Race: Liberating Afghans, Body and Soul

Chris Floyd
Monday, 18 December 2006

Let us turn once again to the other war, the "good war" in Afghanistan, where four years ago George W. Bush famously liberated the suffering Afghan people from the clutches of the militant Islamic extremists of the Taliban into the hands of the militant Islamic extremists of the Northern Alliance (and their U.S.-picked frontman, Hamid "Why, Yes, I Did Once Work for Oil Barons, Why Do You Ask?" Karzai).

In the Good War – long touted as a success not only by the compulsive liars of the Administration but also by the fat and sassy conventional wisdomists who gorge themselves on eager lappings of Bushist cud – the fighting is now far more brutal and intense than it was in the brief autumn campaign in 2001 that led to overwhelming "victory." In fact, more than 1,000 innocent civilians have been killed by US and NATO bombs in the last year alone, the Christian Science Monitor reports.

Afghanistan was largely abandoned to its fate after Bush launched his "war of choice" (that ringing Friedmanish phrase) in Iraq. As we now know, the Bush team didn't really want to bother with Afghanistan at all – Iraq was their target from Day One – but felt they had to go through the motions there because of the "hunt for Osama" thing. Of course, they didn't take that very seriously either, allowing bin Laden to escape in spectacular fashion, riding out of a supposedly iron-clad seige on horseback. Why, one would almost think that the Bush Administration was trying to make a world-shaking mythical figure out of the pretentious, third-rate crackpot. (Then again, that's what the Bush Team is good at: inflating pretentious third-rate crackpots into world figures. Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice -- these goobers couldn't run a popsicle stand, much less an empire. Yet now their dull and murky mental heavings, like those of bin Laden, spew death across the globe. )

Today, four years after the Crawford Crackpot let his doppelganger go free, the Taliban and its al Qaeda allies are stronger than ever, constantly refreshed by the training, supplies and good old-fashioned R-and-R available in their cozy enclaves in Pakistan, where Bush's staunch Terror War ally, dictator Pervez Musharraf, has signed peace treaties with the holy warriors. From these secure redoubts, they have escalated their attacks in Afghanistan, forcing the overwhelmed, undermanned Western forces there to respond in the time-honored fashion – by bombing the hell out of everybody. Well, why not? After all, collective punishment, constant bombardment and indiscriminate fire has worked so well at winning hearts and minds in Iraq, hasn't it?


Air war costs NATO Afghan supporters (Christian Science Monitor) >>>cont

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