NOTE: If you are sensitive to tales of unmitigated brutality, don’t follow these links. Suffice to say they are descriptions of the terror being carried out against the Afghanis.
While I’ve no respect for the Taleban or Al-Qaeda, I’ve got to admit some of this sounds a little incredible. All of the above links are from the enews site of The Daily Telegraph.
I think what I was asking here (thanks, B) was: has anybody seen any corroboration of the type of goings on described in the links posted in any other source besides the Telegraph? Is the Telegraph normally considered a reputable news source?
Yes, it’s a reputable broadsheet paper although the slant is very Establishment and the newspaper leans seriously to the Right of the UK political spectrum – probably the equivalent of mainstream Republican. This guy has experience from Bosnia and tends to get in amongst it. I think he just writes for the electronic side now but I’m not sure.
Interesting thing about the first article you list is that (according to him in another article) Dashti Qala is part of the front line between the NAA and the Talian forces:
Quote:
“Commander Momar Hasan of the opposition Northern Alliance, who controls the Dushti Qala front near the border with Tajikistan, said bin Laden had also used the valley as a refuge several times since. He said: "We know from the reports of our people that bin Laden was there much of last year.”
One wonders at the scope for embellishment given how few reporters are on the ground at the moment and the possible desire of Establishment media to, at this juncture, demonise the ‘enemy’
Which isn’t to say he’s not telling the truth but caution never hurts.
London_Calling, thanks for replying. I’ve not conversed with you much, but I was wondering how much faith to put into these grisly reports. Kind of a 50/50 proposition as to embellishment for the sake of demonizing the foe at this point, but if you try to imagine the (if the case is necessary) unembellished facts, they are still disturbing. Well, except for the fact that if I dismiss this report, I don’t know what to think.
Should we threaten them with Marines or Womens’ Collegiate Scholarships?
Hi beatle - FWIW, I try to form an overview rather than rely too heavily on specific examples – to do the latter, for me, gives too much weight to an individuals reporting and/or perspective. Or the publication for whom he/she is reporting.
I find Amnesty International to be thorough. Unfortunately, in Afghanistan (at the moment) being ‘thorough’ tends to mean you’re short on real facts. However, the 2001 Report sheds a little light:
One thing that strikes me is that the 10,000’s of thousands of refugee’s currently fleeing Kabul and other population centre’s didn’t do so until the threat of bombing i.e. it wasn’t, it seems, the Taliban regime that led to this exodus. One has to think it’s possible they weren’t unduly threatened, in their own terms, by the regime – or, at least, the male population wasn’t.
But even having said that, there are reports from refuge’s who reached the UK prior to this crisis that relatives who remained (typically a brother) were killed by the Taliban because they had left. Again, heresay.
But, IMHO, the circumstantial evidence, in Western terms, does inexorably mount…