[Peace-discuss] Another straw in the wind ...

[C. G. Estabrook]

I think this is important - and that the NYT does, too.

Their editors are pro-war, and Filkins is their main man on the scene - as he 
was at the assaults on Fallujah.

Since then he's been through the proper 
liberal-propaganda/humanitarian-intervention schools - Nieman Fellows & Carr 
Center at Harvard - and is down with the program...

On 11/1/10 2:54 PM, Ron Szoke wrote:
> NYT  November 1, 2010
> Afghan Police Unit Defects en Masse to Taliban Side
> By DEXTER FILKINS and SHARIFULLAH SAHAK
>
> KABUL, Afghanistan — For months, American and Afghan officials have been
> promoting a plan to persuade masses of rank-and-file Taliban fighters to
> change sides and join the government. The tactic, known as “reintegration,”
> is one of the big hopes for turning the tide in the war.
>
> But the Taliban, it appears, have reintegration plans of their own. On Monday
> morning, they claimed to have put them into effect.
>
> In Khogeyani, a volatile area southwest of the capital, the entire police force
> on duty Monday morning appears to have defected to the Taliban side. A
> spokesman for the Taliban said the movement’s fighters made contact with
> the Khogeyani’s police force, cut a deal, and then sacked and burned the
> station. As many as 19 officers vanished, as did their guns, trucks, uniforms
> and food.
>
> Even the local police chief, who missed the attack, said he suspected a
> defection en masse.
>
> “This was not an attack but a plot,” said Mohammed Yasin, the chief of the
> Khogeyani police force. “The Taliban and the police made a deal.”
>
> A spokesman for the Taliban, Zabiullah Mujahid, said the Afghan officers
> decided to defect after “learning the facts about the Taliban.”
>
> “We never force people to join us,” said Mr. Mujahid, whose name is fictitious.
> “The police joined us voluntarily and are happy to work with us, and to start
> the holy war shoulder-to-shoulder with their Taliban brothers.”
>
> The Taliban takeover of the station did not last long in Khogeyani, a district
> in Ghazni Province. Musa Khan Akbarzada, the provincial governor, said his
> office lost contact with the police station at about 5 a.m. Government forces
> arrived in Khogeyani about three hours later and found the station smoking
> and abandoned.
>
> <cut>
>
> <http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/02/world/asia/02afghan.html>
>
>
>
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