[Imc] Jim Hightower (http://www.jimhightower.com/air/read.asp?id=10690)

[david johnson]

            On Air Archives | Affiliates   
              
            WHO ARE THESE ALLIES?
            10/24/01

            Every American now knows the name Osama bin Laden, and we know a lot about the fiendish Al Queda terrorist network that he heads. Less well-known, however, is the fact that not so long ago, bin Laden and his gunmen were our allies. In the 1980s, during Afghanistan's war with the Societ Union, Bin Laden was on the CIA payroll, and his gunmen were hailed as heroic freedom fighters for standing up to the invading Soviets.
            
            I mention this because our government has now climbed into bed with yet another obscure group that the White House hails as our staunch allies, saying they can help us kill the demonic bin Laden, crush Al Queda, and replace the Taliban as our preferred rulers of Afghanistan. This anti-Taliban group is called Northern Alliance, but before we all salute them as our latest freedom-fighting buddies, its worth asking: Who are these guys?
            
            Basically, they're thugs. Human Rights Watch, the independent group that monitors such nastiness worldwide, reports that our new allies "engaged in rape, summary executions, arbitrary arrests, torture, and 'disappearances.'" The New York Times reports that Northern Alliance also is charged with financing its anti-Taliban military action with money it gets from opium trafficking and weapons smuggling. It also appears to be big on shelling civilians and burning and looting the homes of people it suspects of being Taliban sympathizers.
            
            The Alliance's leaders have been in power before. The Times reports that when they tried to run Afghanistan in the early nineties, the capitol city dissovled into factional civil war, more than 25,000 people died, a third of the city was reduced to rubble, and things were so chaotic that the Taliban was able to take power by promising to restore order.
            
            This is Jim Hightower saying...Yes, war is a dirty business, but even in war the old saying applies: "Tell me with whom you walk, and I"ll tell you who you are." 



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            "Rebel group's dubious past, lack of leader raise concerns" Austin American Statesman 10/7/2001


               
             
              
    
             Jim Hightower 
            Hightower & Associates
            1802 W. 6th Street
            Austin, TX 78703
            512-477-5588
            info at jimhightower.com
             
              
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