The Failure of the War on Terror
Excellent hard hitting article, summarising the concerns we have been expressing from the outset.

"Meanwhile, in Afghanistan itself, the record is just as dismal. By using the heroin-financed gangsters of the Northern Alliance to overthrow the Taliban regime and pursue al-Qaida remnants ever since, the US has handed over most of the country to the same war criminals who devastated Afghanistan in the early 1990s. In Kabul, the US puppet president Hamid Karzai can rely on foreign troops to prop up his fragile authority. There, and in a few other urban centers, some girls' schools have re-opened and the worst manifestations of the Taliban's grotesque oppression of women have gone.

"But in much of what is once again the opium capital of the world, the return of the lawlords has meant harsh political repression, lawlessness, mass rape and widespread torture, the bombing or closure of schools, as well as Taliban-style policing of women's dress and behavior. The systematic use by Ismail Khan, who runs much of western Afghanistan with US support, of electric shock torture, arbitrary arrests and whippings to crush dissent is set out in a new Human Rights Watch report. Khan was nevertheless described by the US defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld recently as a "thoughtful" and "appealing" person. His counterpart in the north, General Dostam, has in turn just been accused by the UN of torturing witnesses to his troops' murder of thousands of Taliban prisoners late last year, when he was working closely with US special forces.

"The death toll exacted for this "liberation" can only be estimated. But a consensus is growing that around 3,500 Afghan civilians were killed by US bombing (which included the large-scale use of depleted uranium weapons), with up to 10,000 combatants killed and many more deaths from cold and hunger as a result of the military action. Now, long after the war was supposed to be over, the US 82nd airborne division is reported to be alienating the population in the south and east with relentless but largely fruitless raids and detentions, while mortar and rocket attacks on US bases are now taking place at least three times a week. As General Richard Myers, chairman of the US joint chiefs of staff, puts it, the US military campaign in Afghanistan has "lost momentum".

"All this has been the inevitable product of the central choice made last autumn, which was to opt for a mainly military solution to the challenge of Islamist terrorism. That was a recipe for failure."

The Failure of the War on Terror
Excellent hard hitting article, summarising the concerns we have been expressing from the outset.

"Meanwhile, in Afghanistan itself, the record is just as dismal. By using the heroin-financed gangsters of the Northern Alliance to overthrow the Taliban regime and pursue al-Qaida remnants ever since, the US has handed over most of the country to the same war criminals who devastated Afghanistan in the early 1990s. In Kabul, the US puppet president Hamid Karzai can rely on foreign troops to prop up his fragile authority. There, and in a few other urban centers, some girls' schools have re-opened and the worst manifestations of the Taliban's grotesque oppression of women have gone.

"But in much of what is once again the opium capital of the world, the return of the lawlords has meant harsh political repression, lawlessness, mass rape and widespread torture, the bombing or closure of schools, as well as Taliban-style policing of women's dress and behavior. The systematic use by Ismail Khan, who runs much of western Afghanistan with US support, of electric shock torture, arbitrary arrests and whippings to crush dissent is set out in a new Human Rights Watch report. Khan was nevertheless described by the US defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld recently as a "thoughtful" and "appealing" person. His counterpart in the north, General Dostam, has in turn just been accused by the UN of torturing witnesses to his troops' murder of thousands of Taliban prisoners late last year, when he was working closely with US special forces.

"The death toll exacted for this "liberation" can only be estimated. But a consensus is growing that around 3,500 Afghan civilians were killed by US bombing (which included the large-scale use of depleted uranium weapons), with up to 10,000 combatants killed and many more deaths from cold and hunger as a result of the military action. Now, long after the war was supposed to be over, the US 82nd airborne division is reported to be alienating the population in the south and east with relentless but largely fruitless raids and detentions, while mortar and rocket attacks on US bases are now taking place at least three times a week. As General Richard Myers, chairman of the US joint chiefs of staff, puts it, the US military campaign in Afghanistan has "lost momentum".

"All this has been the inevitable product of the central choice made last autumn, which was to opt for a mainly military solution to the challenge of Islamist terrorism. That was a recipe for failure."