STORY

Several
April 10, 2003


COMMENT

Remember Afghanistan? The place Emperor Bush invaded before he invaded 
Iraq?

Our rulers brought "democracy" to a grateful people there, in the person of 
Mr. Hamid Karzai, a leader of one of the innumerable clans and factions 
that make up the "nation," and a man celebrated in the fashion pages of 
Western publications for his exquisite sartorial taste.

Despite the best efforts of the Imperium, however, Mr. Karzai, and his 
fellow U.S. puppets, it seems that "democracy" hasn't really taken root yet 
in Afghanistan. Instead, there is chaos, with constant low-intensity 
warfare going on, especially in the east. Karzai has a bodyguard of 
Imperial troops, because Afghans can't be trusted to protect him from the 
growing number of other Afghans who want to blow him away. And U.S. troops 
themselves are finding Afghanistan a decreasingly congenial place, as the 
evil Taliban, a former U.S. client, regroups in the mountains and escalates 
its attacks against the occupiers:

http://news.independent.co.uk/low_res/story.
jsp?story=392812&host=3&dir=71

> 01 April 2003
> 
> Posters apparently endorsed by one of America's most wanted 
> fugitives, Mullah Mohammed Omar, have appeared in Afghanistan 
> calling for renewed holy war, providing a further sign that the 
> conflict is worsening.
> 
> Signed by 600 Islamic clerics, the posters appeared amid a 
> flurry of attacks which saw guerrillas fire rockets at a United 
> Nations base in Kabul and at US military installations.
> 
> The deteriorating situation has been underscored in the past 
> few days by the killing of two American special forces soldiers 
> in an ambush in southern Afghanistan and the death of a Red 
> Cross worker, shot through the head while on a mission to 
> install water wells.

Here's another recent incident:

http://news.independent.co.uk/low_res/story.
jsp?story=394430&host=3&dir=71

> 06 April 2003
> 
> A close ally of Afghan President Hamid Karzai was shot and 
> killed in southern Afghanistan in what appeared to be the 
> latest in a wave of attacks by resurgent Taliban, a provincial 
> government official said yesterday....
> 
> "There are fears that Taliban remnants are reorganising their 
> forces in an effort to destabilise Mr Karzai's fledgling 
> government. There have been several so-called 'night letters' 
> warning Afghans against working with foreigners and threatening 
> those who do with death."

There have been other reports of recent pitched battles with U.S. troops in 
which U.S positions were actually taken by Taliban forces.

If you get your news from the telescreen broadcasts and publications of our 
Ministry of Truth -- the mainstream News Media -- you won't have learned 
much about these problems. But they induce a feeling of queasy foreboding 
in anyone with a working knowledge of Afghan history. This is eerily like 
the way previous Afghan wars against foreign invaders have begun -- from 
the British beginning in the 1830s to the Soviets only 20 or so years ago. 
All of those wars were extremely bloody and costly to the invaders. All 
ended with them being glad to get out, sooner or later (except the first 
of three British invasions, in which the entire garrison of 9,500 troops -- 
plus women, children, and servants -- was slaughtered as they tried to 
escape).

As the surprisingly easy "liberation" of Iraq is celebrated on our 
telescreens, perhaps now is the time to take a look at what's happening at 
the scene of the Empire's last triumph. Do those events portend anything 
for Iraq?

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