Taliban Are Resurfacing in Chaotic Afghanistan

[NNN0LHI]

http://www.afgha.com/?af=article&sid=35955

WARDAK, Afghanistan -- Two months after a gun attack, the bullet holes in the Datsun sedan have been patched and it runs beautifully. But water engineer Asil Kahn walks with a limp and he still has two bullets in his body.

The vehicle's humanitarian logo made him a victim in the battle for Afghanistan's future, where water engineers, mine-clearers and humanitarian workers -- people the country needs most -- are prime targets for militants trying to destabilize President Hamid Karzai's interim government.

"They weren't robbers or thieves," said Kahn, 46. "They just wanted to kill us. They're people against the government. They thought that maybe there would be some foreigners or some officials from aid organizations in the car. That's why they shot us."

With the slow buildup of a national Afghan army, an inadequate U.S. and coalition presence and poor progress on reconstruction projects, Afghanistan is spiraling out of control and risks becoming a "narco-mafia" state, some humanitarian agencies warn.

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[BiggJawn]

1. But.....We won the WAR????

Karzai is "President" of 6 square blocks of Kabul, and the warlords have cleared the roads with their "tolls", and the Poppy crop was very good this year....

Yep, we "won" all right.

it was so damn much like a cartoon. Rumsferatu and Tommy "Country Club" Franks stand around, watching Mullah Ohmar ride off on a dirtbike...

"Well, guess we showed that bastard who we are. He won't be back anytime soon, eh, Tommy?"

"You Bet, Don, Why, I'll bet that fucker won't stop running 'til he gets to Pakistan, and I'll bet it'll be a cold day in Hell before he tries to stick his nose around these parts again..."

Weather Bulletin! Frost last night in Hades!

[PROGRESSIVE1]

2. You forgot that Karzai controls the Water Fountain...

in front of the capital building.

Bob Graham has been very clear about this! Iraq was the wrong priority. This problem with the Taliban regrouping is serious and Bushco has given it up for an easy poll boosting victory!

[BiggJawn]

3. It wasn't THAT "easy"...

I don't care what it said on the sign when "Kommandur Codpiece" strutted up and down the deck of the "USS Photo-Op", As far as I'm concerned, NEITHER job is done yet.

Afghanistan brings to mind the half-eaten plate of food some kid leaves behind at the picnic because they just broke out the ice cream and he's run off to get his bomb-pop.

Iraq is Vietnam, and we'll get to see Al-Jizzy footage of Bremer leaving via helicopter from the roof of his office building.

Our Afghanistan "strategy" was like riding your bike past a farmhouse. The dogs come a'hellin' out at you and snap at your heels all the way down the road, but as soon as you pass some un-seen point, they stop and trot back to their spots under the porch.

Until the next time you ride past w/a water bottle full of ammonia or a small revolver.....Or, Like Mullah Ohmar, a LOT of RPG's...

[Aidoneus]

4. no, he doesn't even control that fountain anymore..

Taliban regrouping isn't the most serious problem, it's the "Northern Alliance" and other US-backed warlords running everything that should be the concern, for that phrase should rather be "running everything into the ground". As a general framework I would say that Afghanistan c.'92 was far more unfavourable than Afghanistan c.'98, due to the civil war and widespread criminality and it is those things that have come back in spades.

HRW recently put out a report about the very serious abuses by the primarily US-backed warlords, it looks very much like the worst parts of the civil war period have been returned since the US "liberation". Articles about the report and the report itself are available at--
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2003/aug2003/afgh-a02.shtml
http://www.hrw.org/reports/2003/afghanistan0703

[Mal]

5. A leader of an Afghan woman's group,

I remember talking on the TV once was saying that comparing the Taliban rule with the earlier Northern Alliance (whatever they called themselves then) rule, she could see little difference between them in the end score, despite what the popular press was saying at the time about how bad the Taliban were.
Under the Northern Alliance, women had the right to work, to be educated, be out in public without men present, and the "pleasure" of being regularly raped not only with the law looking the other way, but BY the law. Under the Taliban, women could not work, be educated, or go out in public, and rapists were executed in the local soccer field.