NP? standing tall, proud to support America

[Richard Romeo]

doug, I think the war there is far from over--witness more US casualties 
today.

I'm not sure anyone really knows the situation on the ground, even the 
military, it's that fluid.  I think we can all agree that the heavy use of 
air power is troubling and the problems with the warlords and civilian 
casualties.

The Bush administration in many ways is a disaster for the U.S. and it is 
kinda unfortunate that we do need to support such an administration in a 
exercise that warrants some sort of military action. However, reading about 
our actions in the Phillipines, Yemen, and so on, the US presence there is 
pretty much negligible.
I do worry about the administrations plan for Iraq and its apparent 
cognitive dissonance approach to the middle east (the admin. sounds as 
effective as the pope in its calls for peace). Columbia bothers me as well.

I feel, as probably other do, very torn by the current situation.

rich


>From: Doug Millison <millison at online-journalist.com>
>To: pynchon-l at waste.org
>Subject: NP?  standing tall, proud to support America
>Date: Sun, 3 Mar 2002 18:26:38 -0800
>
>"[...] The bogus reasons for the "war on terrorism" are unravelling by the
>day, as is Blair's complicity with its crimes of violence in Afghanistan
>and denial of rights. The original purpose of Camp X-Ray was as a piece of
>grotesque theatre for the ever-manipulated American public.
>
>In releasing deliberately provocative photographs of cowed men in chains,
>the Bush regime believed it could distract public opinion from the debacle
>of its "war" in Afghanistan, in which its war machine failed to capture or
>kill Osama bin Laden or a single senior member of al-Qaeda.
>
>Even the Taliban leader Mullah Omar got away. All they got was the
>Taliban's ambassador to Pakistan, a relatively minor functionary.
>
>The price of this American disaster for the people of Afghanistan was,
>according to a recent study at the University of New Hampshire, at least
>5,000 civilian lives.
>
>For all the posed photographs of American troops against desert landscapes,
>hardly any of them have seen combat. Instead, impoverished people in dusty
>villages are killed from the sky.
>
>Not even the cost of an American B52 bomber has reached the Afghan people
>in aid - in spite of "pledges" by America and Europe and the
>"we-shall-never-desert-Afghanistan-again" windbaggery of Blair.
>
>In spite of a public relations drive to prove that the American-installed
>regime in Kabul is radically different from that of the Taliban, the main
>changes are a return to a bloody civil war and feudalism and the renewal of
>the heroin trade.
>
>As for the human rights of the long-suffering population, the new
>government will, like the Taliban, impose sharia Islamic law on its people.
>Judge Ahamat Ullha Zarif says that public executions and amputations will
>continue, but there will be one variation: "For example, the Taliban used
>to hang the victim's body in public for four days. We will only hang the
>body for a short time, say 15 minutes."
>
>Judge Zarif made clear that the ultimate penalty would remain in force for
>adulterers, both male and female. They would still be stoned to death, "but
>we will use only small stones".
>
>This is the regime whose leaders have a bodyguard of British soldiers. And
>still the Americans bomb - while famine sweeps the north and west of
>Afghanistan in the wake of the American attacks.
>
>On February 12, a World Vision Health and Nutrition Team reported from the
>North West that "numerous groups of women and children are scavenging the
>valley fields for weeds, roots and grass to eat".
>
>The French aid agency Medecins sans Frontieres says that more and more
>people are becoming malnourished. "The food system is not working," said a
>nurse, Jenny Andersson. "Although the World Food Programme has been
>providing food for more than 300,000 people, it simply isn't reaching the
>people that need it."
>
>NONE of these horrors has been addressed by the American or British
>governments, the principal partners in the Washington-bribed "coalition"
>claiming responsibility for the Afghanistan disaster, which Jack Straw
>calls "our vindication".
>
>It is not surprising that, even as ex-Yugoslav leader Slobodan Milosevic
>stands trial in The Hague, the Americans are pressing for an end to war
>crimes trials altogether. This means that the Bush administration is afraid
>that the process might slip out of its control and become a permanent
>fixture, encouraging the setting up of an International Criminal Court,
>which Washington opposes.
>
>It fears that such a body might act truly judicially and order the arrest
>of "our" war criminals - that is, American and British politicians and
>officials who have ordered, or aided and abetted the bombing to death of
>thousands of innocent men, women and children and have run or collaborated
>in the running of a concentration camp like that in which emaciated men who
>are held and interrogated in breach of international law.
>
>In his play Ashes To Ashes, Harold Pinter uses the images of Nazism and the
>Holocaust, while interpreting them as a warning that the totalitarian
>actions of western politicians seeking dominance over other human beings
>are no different, in principle and effect, from those of fascists - and
>terrorists.
>
>The reality behind the Prime Minister's pretensions as a "war leader"
>become clearer every day.
>
>http://www.zmag.org/sustainers/content/2002-03/03pilger.cfm


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