Kate,
Please take no offense, but this is a very irresponsible piece by Scheer,
and not current seeing how it was written back in May. Many of us have all
been very ignorant about the U.S. dealings with Afghanistan (myself
included) until recently. I never knew, for example, until someone posted
on the list the other day that our government helped install the Taliban
many years ago, thinking (ignorantly again) that they would be a better
alternative to Soviet rule. Bin Laden was one of our main operatives in
this and we paid him handsomely for it. He later turned against us and we
later learned just what despots we had installed there. Officially we
sanction them, but unofficially, for several years now, we have been
back-dooring, under different guises, this kind of money to them. It is
hard to say if it is for humanitarian purposes, but it is probably safe to
say, as many in our government are now acknowledging, that it has been
"incentive" for them to turn Bin Laden over to us. We have also tried
limited bombing of them, as you may recall, back in 1998. That did not
work, either. One of our main hopes now is that the authentic Muslims in
the region will stand by us at this time. Kakki
Kate wrote:
> If you are speaking of unintended financial support then our government is
just as guilty. Almost 4 months ago we sent $43 million to the Taliban
rulers of Afghanistan for the war on drugs.
> http://www.robertscheer.com/1_natcolumn/01_columns/052201.htm
