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LIFE DURING WARTIME. Two brothers, aged 8 and 12, spent a recent day
playing with shrapnel left behind by U.S. bombing of their hamlet
outside of Kabul. "Hazrat Wali and his brother Saddar showed off their
treasures - parts of the bomb, which destroyed a water well that
supplies the poor neighborhood of sun-baked mud homes and rickety old
shops crafted from uneven slats of wood," writes Kathy Gannon, the
Associated Press Islamabad bureau chief (who somehow manages to report
from inside Afghanistan without a Taliban guided tour).
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/ap/20011030/wl/afghanistan_bombing_treasures_1.html
In a hospital in Quetta, Pakistan, 18-month-old Hameedullah recovers
from injuries he received during the bombing of Orazgan, a town north of
Kandahar. According to Hameedullah's uncle, 12 members of his family
were killed in the bombing, including four of Hameedullah's five
siblings.
http://search.news.yahoo.com/search/news_photos?p=Hameedullah&n=20&c=news_photos
The U.S. says it only bombs military targets. Even so, the Taliban have
begun redeploying their equipment and personnel in order to maximize the
number of civilians killed and non-military infrastructure - like
hospitals and water wells - destroyed in U.S. airstrikes. "The Americans
know the specific places to hit, but sometimes they misplace the bombs,"
Amamodin, who seethed under the Taliban until he and his family escaped
from Kabul to Pakistan, says in the Oct. 30 Christian Science Monitor.
"Now the Taliban are taking the guns to the residential areas, and when
they fire at the planes, the planes see them and drop bombs on them.
That's when the innocent people die." (Note the absence of veils in the
photograph.)
http://www.csmonitor.com/2001/1030/p9s1-wosc.html
Everywhere outside of the United States, large numbers of people are
openly and with increasing hostility questioning the wisdom of bombing
the possibly the poorest, most devastated country in the world as a way
of bringing terrorists to justice. "Militarily, the Taliban are taking a
fearful pounding, but politically and morally, they are winning,"
Singapore-based military scholar Kumar Ramakrishna writes in the Nov. 1
Christian Science Monitor. "The main reason is the increasing reports
that Afghan civilians are being killed. This is leading ordinary Muslims
in Afghanistan and elsewhere - no doubt prompted by Al Qaeda's whispers
- to ask why innocent Afghans are dying when not a single Afghan was
involved in the attacks of Sept. 11."
http://www.csmonitor.com/2001/1101/p11s1-coop.html
In the U.S. media reports about civilians killed in the bombing must now
be muted by disclaimers. In a recent memo, Rick Davis, CNN's head of
standards and practices, "suggested" language for anchors to adopt after
particularly gruesome reports about civilian casualties. "We must keep
in mind, after seeing reports like this from Taliban-controlled areas,
that these U.S. military actions are in response to a terrorist attack
that killed close to 5,000 innocent people in the U.S.," was one
suggestion. Another: "The Pentagon has repeatedly stressed that it is
trying to minimize civilian casualties in Afghanistan, even as the
Taliban regime continues to harbor terrorists who are connected to the
September 11 attacks that claimed thousands of innocent lives in the
U.S."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A14435-2001Oct30.html
US News and World Report's Michael Barone has a more explicit suggestion
for reporting on civilian casualties in Afghanistan: Just shut up. "The
fact that there are civilian casualties and collateral damage are not
very newsworthy," he writes Oct. 30. "Our news media should stop
reporting every allegation of civilian casualties or collateral damage
as if it were front-page material and evidence of a war crime."
http://www.usnews.com/usnews/opinion/baroneweb/mb_011030.htm
War crime or not, other nations - essential allies for any global fight
against terrorism - take a somewhat less flippant attitude toward such
deaths and injuries. "Many governments who signed up to the United
States' war against terrorism prompted by the events of September 11 are
now urging caution," reports the Oct. 31 Guardian in a survey of
shifting attitudes on the U.S. war among governments worldwide. "Some
are still supportive of forthright action, others are calling for
restraint while a few are now openly hostile to any continuance of
military action." In South Africa, for example, the government expressed
"grave concern over the disastrous humanitarian tragedy that is
unfolding in Afghanistan."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/waronterror/story/0,1361,583795,00.html
***
LETTING LOOSE. In the past couple days, the U.S. has seriously
intensified its aerial bombardment of Taliban positions north of Kabul,
using radio-equipped Green Berets on the ground to identify targets and
B-52s to let loose with anti-personnel cluster bombs. "We believe that
puts a terrific amount of stress on their military capability," Rear
Adm. John Stufflebeem said Wednesday at the Pentagon.
http://chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-0111010262nov01.story?coll=chi%2Dnewsnationworld%2Dhed
Reuters was the first to use "carpet bomb" to describe the attacks (
http://www.reuters.com/news_article.jhtml?type=worldnews&StoryID=336371).
And the U.S. military immediately disputed its use. It's, like, so 1971,
said Stufflebeem. "I think it's an inaccurate term," he said. "It's an
old expression. Heavy bombers have the capacity to carry large loads of
weapons, and oftentimes if a target presents itself either in an
engagement zone, or when directed, it's possible to release an entire
load of bombs at once, in which case the real formal term for that is
called a 'longstick,' which has also," he conceded, "been called carpet
bombing."
http://www.washingtontimes.com/national/20011031-23126172.htm
If the carpet-bombing fails to pound the Taliban into submission, the
U.S. has begun drawing up plans for a possible full-scale invasion of
Afghanistan from the north, reports the U.K. Telegraph. Under the
scenario (which, keep in mind, remains just a scenario), "the allies
would carry out sporadic bombing attacks throughout the winter while the
opposition Northern Alliance was built up into a workable ally before a
full-scale ground invasion in the spring." The piece, based on
information from the London broadsheets' stable of unnamed British
intelligence forces, adds that "planners are aware that a ground
invasion would be hard for the politicians to sell to electorates and to
the other members of the coalition but believe that, without an early
breakthrough, they have no other option."
http://www.portal.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml;$sessionid$2Z1KHIQAAAHATQFIQMFSFFWAVCBQ0IV0?xml=/news/2001/10/31/wmil31.xml
***
ON THE ROAD. After a three-week road trip into Northern Afghanistan that
brought them to within 20 miles of Kabul, India Today's executive editor
chief photographer put together a five-part series about their journey.
"We hired a Soviet-built jeep, a Zil, to take us Khwaja Bawahuddin, the
military headquarters of the Northern Alliance," writes Raj Chengappa.
"We drove up a steep hill with the headlamps doused to avoid being fired
at by the Taliban."
http://www.thenewspapertoday.com/specials/index.phtml?SPECIALS=USBOMBING/IN_AFGAN1
Along their journey, they might have run into kids like Zikira, a "a
little boy who flies a simple handmade kite" but wants to grow up and be
a warrior," reports the Oct. 29 San Francisco Chronicle. "Every boy
wants to become a commander," says Zikria, who claims to be 14, but
looks no older than 10. "I am training to be one now."
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2001/10/29/MN9819.DTL
***
THUMBS UP. The hottest movie in diplomatic and political circles these
days is "Kandahar," Iranian director Mohsen Makhmalbaf's film about a
Canadian-Afghani woman who sneaks into Afghanistan to find her suicidal
sister. The film, which will open in the U.S. early 2002 and in Canada
later this month, is so hot that President George W. Bush "made an
urgent request for a screening," reports the Guardian. It set records in
Italy Oct. 12 week beating AI and Moulin Rouge. "There's a great scene
in Kandahar in which two women, entirely enveloped in black burkas,
share a tube of lipstick and a mirror," writes the Guardian. "The
outside world may not be able to see the results, but they're
determined."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Archive/Article/0,4273,4285092,00.html
In another scene, a plane appears overhead to drop plastic prosthetic
legs. "Like surreal half-soldiers, the legs sway in the breeze under
pocket-sized parachutes, while a small army of one-legged Afghans
sprints on crutches toward them," reports the Newark Ledger, which added
that 700 people showed up to a 400-seat auditorium at Columbia
University for a special screening.
http://www.nj.com/entertainment/ledger/index.ssf?/movies/ledger/14dad68.html
***
MAILBAG
* Aaron in New York spotted Cynthia McKinney, the Georgia Congressman
opposing U.S. policy in Afghanistan on C-Span (a publicly funded U.S.
television station that plays unedited feeds from government meetings)
speaking out against the war effort. "Pretty great critical speech of
administration's policy in Afghanistan," writes Aaron. "Recognition that
this is a propaganda war. That bombing Afghanistan like we are and
actually finding osama, may or may not have all that much impact on
terror. And that if this is a propaganda war, then we're losing." He
adds, "Of course, no one covered this hearing. The room was empty."
Others have been covering McKinney, however, including the Atlanta
Journal-Constitution
(http://www.accessatlanta.com/ajc/metro/1028mckinney.html) and the
National Review
(http://www.nationalreview.com/goldberg/goldberg102901.shtml).
ENDNOTE. Brett in Tokyo found "a beauty" on CNN. "The United States is
changing the color of food ration packets it is dropping in Afghanistan
because they are the same color -- yellow -- as unexploded cluster
bombs," writes Brett. "Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs
of Staff, said the United States will change the color of the food
packets to blue." BBC was the first to note the U.S. goof. "The food
ration is enclosed in yellow plastic bags," said Voice of America radio.
"The food inside the bags is Halal and very nutritional. In areas away
from where food has been dropped, cluster bombs will also be dropped.
The colour of these bombs is also yellow. All bombs will explode when
they hit the ground, but in some special circumstances some of the bombs
will not explode."
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/monitoring/media_reports/newsid_1624000/1624787.stm
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