Proproganda

Hobbes

Story here

I don't know, if someone shouted this at me I wouldn't give up. it reads to me as if "Hey we are going to kill you" followed by "come out and we won't kill you, (hee hee)".

"Attention Taliban! You are condemned. Did you know that? The instant the terrorists you support took over our planes, you sentenced yourselves to death. The Armed Forces of the United States are here to seek justice for our dead. Highly trained soldiers are coming to shut down once and for all Osama bin Laden's ring of terrorism, and the Taliban that supports them and their actions.

"Our forces are armed with state of the art military equipment. What are you using, obsolete and ineffective weaponry? Our helicopters will rain fire down upon your camps before you detect them on your radar. Our bombs are so accurate we can drop them right through your windows. Our infantry is trained for any climate and terrain on earth. United States soldiers fire with superior marksmanship and are armed with superior weapons.

"You have only one choice ... Surrender now and we will give you a second chance. We will let you live. If you surrender no harm will come to you. When you decide to surrender, approach United States forces with your hands in the air. Sling your weapon across your back muzzle towards the ground. Remove your magazine and expel any rounds. Doing this is your only chance of survival."

seamus

Our bombs are so accurate we can drop them right through your windows.

Right......, that's why a completely civilian village was destroyed, and a red cross building too.

Amoi, why the hell did the red cross have a warehouse at all? That food should have been out feeding people, not sitting in a warehouse!!!!! They are constantly asking for more aid and money, yet they had tonnes of food stockpiled in an area that badly needed it distributed. wtf?!

Manach

Originally posted by seamus
Amoi, why the hell did the red cross have a warehouse at all? That food should have been out feeding people, not sitting in a warehouse!!!!!

My guess is that with winter coming they need a stockpile of food that would last for that season in a central location free from vermin & reasonable secure from looting (though not sadly from bombs)

Magwitch

It is one of the things that I find most annoying about the current conflict is the constant air time given to ai organistations. If they were solely talking about aid I would not mind but tha make some very overt statements about the politica of the current crises and it is not their place to do so.

Koffi Annan may have gotten the nobel peace prize for reinventing the UN but that organisation have over seen disasters in Ruwanda, Kosovo and Bosnia, and its policies in the latter led to a prolonging of suffering and the war itself. Yet the UNHCR talks to world governments from a lofty moral highground. Unacceptable.

Given their way the aid agencies would plug away in Afghanistan with an increasingly difficult Taliban to deal with and hamper them (prior to Sept 11 the UN had aid operations suspened a number of times by the Taliban).

If the West did not intervene: Result number #1? Famine and mass starvation. Result #2? The west is blamed for not interveaning on time or doing enough. I find it baffleing that time after time a patern of aid agencies lashing out at the west happens, and it is the west that resolves the issue. The burocrats and administrators of aid agancies seem to think that they have an ordained role to play in political negioations and the game of nations, they do not.

Xterminator

I agree with what you saying magwitch, but you forgot result no .3. Regardless of whether or not the west had invaded.

The people of Afganistan will suffer terribly and flock to the aid camps setup and funded by the west.
(The Taliban even stole food destined for its own).

Yet the suffering of these people will make these camps recruiting grounds for Taliban, and Bin Ladens forces. Thwe will be wthe next wave of suicide bombers.

X

Digi_Tilmitt

A lot more people will starve to Death in Afganistan then died in the WTC, this is horrible.

Typedef

This is the US military complex at work.

Magwitch

Originally posted by Digi_Tilmitt
A lot more people will starve to Death in Afganistan then died in the WTC, this is horrible.

This is true, but at least America has justafication to intervene in Afghanistan and the quicker they end the Talibans reign of terror the quicker the humanitarian crisies can be brought to an end. If WTC hads not happened no one could have helped effectivly and the Taliban would have turned whats left of Afghanistan into dust.

As for the recruitment of Taliban in refugee camps, many are fleeing the Taliban or starvation - or would have had to any way in the near future. The Taliban are Pustan, and tribal loyalties run deep, but even many Pustan are now of the growing opinion that Osama Bin Laden is their opressor and the cause of their misery and the Taliban is just a puppet of this foreign power. OBL and his network are not Afgan and without their support the Taliban are nothing. Many Pustan are looking for a return to their Tribal alignments rather than OBL's forign legion.