Arab Spring, Afghan Spring: No Pasaran.
More than 10,000 people gathered Thursday in Kabul to oppose reconciliation with the Taliban and the involvement of Pakistan in any peace deal, warning that it would be a betrayal of the Afghan people’s long fight against extremism. “The Taliban and Al Qaeda are terrorists,” said Amrullah Saleh, as he looked out across the crowd, many of them young people. “They have destroyed our lands and houses, dishonored our wives and families." Then he addressed Mr. Karzai: “You call them your brothers, this is oppression — to this nation; they are not our brothers,” a criticism of Mr. Karzai’s frequent reference to the Taliban not as enemies or terrorists but as “upset brothers” or “angry brothers.”
Crowds carrying green flags and wearing ribbons of the newly established National Movement gathered under a vast series of tented canopies in the capital days after the event was called on Monday – the same day that news broke that Osama bin Laden had been killed by US special forces in Pakistan. "Deal making" were dirty words to the crowd. Banners lining the tent said "We didn't vote for Karzai to make deals," and "Don't sacrifice justice for dealing." Speeches were interrupted several times by chants from the crowd of "Death to the Taliban. Death to the suicide bombers. Death to the Punjabis" – a reference to the demonstrators' view that the Taliban is under the control of Pakistan's spy service.
"I am not here to say I'm against peace. I am one voice out of millions of Afghans who are against terror," Saleh told his supporters. "This government and democracy are a result of your blood and sacrifice but there is a small group of jealous people who are making a deal (with the insurgents) and we will not allow them."
Meanwhile, read Michael Petrou, a comrade: "There was a time, in the 1930s, when the NDP’s forefathers in the CCF took a stand against fascism in Spain. That the NDP has abandoned its heritage and now seeks accommodation with those they once fought is its own shame. But the party’s current moral bankruptcy on foreign affairs doesn’t change the fact that the Left has a much nobler tradition."
Crowds carrying green flags and wearing ribbons of the newly established National Movement gathered under a vast series of tented canopies in the capital days after the event was called on Monday – the same day that news broke that Osama bin Laden had been killed by US special forces in Pakistan. "Deal making" were dirty words to the crowd. Banners lining the tent said "We didn't vote for Karzai to make deals," and "Don't sacrifice justice for dealing." Speeches were interrupted several times by chants from the crowd of "Death to the Taliban. Death to the suicide bombers. Death to the Punjabis" – a reference to the demonstrators' view that the Taliban is under the control of Pakistan's spy service."I am not here to say I'm against peace. I am one voice out of millions of Afghans who are against terror," Saleh told his supporters. "This government and democracy are a result of your blood and sacrifice but there is a small group of jealous people who are making a deal (with the insurgents) and we will not allow them."
Meanwhile, read Michael Petrou, a comrade: "There was a time, in the 1930s, when the NDP’s forefathers in the CCF took a stand against fascism in Spain. That the NDP has abandoned its heritage and now seeks accommodation with those they once fought is its own shame. But the party’s current moral bankruptcy on foreign affairs doesn’t change the fact that the Left has a much nobler tradition."
posted by Terry Glavin at 9:11 AM
2 Comments:
I hate to say it, but the killing of OBL has led to too many Americans just wishfully thinking that we can now just up and leave Afghanistan. It's not an irrational impulse with the mission having dragged on so long. But Imho, it would be a big mistake with potentially terrible consequences, especially for all those Afghanis who've fought so hard to oppose the Taliban. It's a very telling insight on how little the U.S. public and many of it's leaders understand the Taliban threat.
The locus of threat is not in the taliban but runs an islamic web that runs from the turbaned dictators in Iran through wahhabi clerics in saudi, the salafi beardos, the stealthy ihkwan and conglomerate supremacist sharia promoters. Afganistan is designed to bleed the West of will, blood and mostly money. Afgans suffer because of islam,they gain when islam retreats, suffer again with it's resurgence.
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