American Solders Actions Cause Outrage in Afghanistan

Taliban: Peace talks not harmed by urinating-Marines video I was surprised to see this video on MSN.com. The video shows American soldiers urinating on corpses dead Taliban fighters. Of course everyone in the so-called civilized Western world is outraged that their soldiers have indulged in such demeaning actions. Afghanistan authorities are also angry, they have called for action from the US and asked for the concerned soldiers to be punished after investigation into the incident.

This video comes at a bad time when US is preparing to negotiate with its protege - The Taliban. I call the Taliban as US Protege because it was the brainchild of American congressman Charlie Wilson who funnelled billions of dollars in the late 1970s and 1980s to arm Taliban fighters (then called Mujahideen) so they could defeat Soviet Union. Now the Taliban has come back to bite the hand that fed it - the US.

It is true that anyone would be outraged to see someone urinating on dead people, even if they were bad people. I definitely believe that they have a right to be angry and the guilty people must be punished. But let us take a step back and examine what the Taliban were doing with their prisoners. It is well known they used extreme methods of torture such as gouging out eyes, cutting off ears, nose and decapitating them etc. Bloody methods of torture and now this incident has them up in arms and has made them very angry. What about the families of those whose bodies that were returned by them without ears, nose, eyes, etc? Did they apologize or were they even mentioned in the media?

If America were to apologize for the actions of its soldiers in front of Tailban leaders, it seems like the world's superpowers are kneeling in front of a rowdy, rogue entity whose sole aim is to kill everyone who doesn't agree and follow its ideology. This video which I hope is the plant of a mischief monger and not true comes at a bad time in the world history. This might just be the fulcrum needed to pivot Taliban back to power in Afghanistan and then all the war effort of the past decade will be in the naught.

Only time can tell what will happen.... I hope whatever happens leads to a more peaceful and verdant world.

Sporadic Blogging

I have been quite irregular blogging during the past fortnight or so. There are couple of reasons including starting of a new (part-time/ contract) job which keeps me quite busy and in my car. My new job takes me all the way to nearly downtown Dallas from the far North Dallas where I live.

I listen to lot of NPR and a new conservative talk radio station 570 KLIF which I recently stumbled upon. Both places are abuzz with the latest news while the former is slightly liberal the latter is extremely conservative. Several show hosts and speakers on both stations are of the view that the recent massacre of 13 soldiers by a Muslim major of the US Army is an act of Jihadi terrorism but not necessarily related to or funded or managed by the Al Qaeda. The government and popular media including newspapers seem to be vehemently disputing this fact. Everyone seems to say that he was a mentally disturbed man who snapped at the prospect of having to deploy to Afghanistan or Iraq. I mention both Afghanistan and Iraq because I am not quite clear by the news reports as to where he was scheduled to go.

My only question is if he were mentally disturbed and didn't want to go he should have either quit the army or committed suicide. Only a cold blooded terrorist-like individual would do what he did, kill others who were headed to Iraq and Afghanistan. I sometimes wonder if the American establishment is becoming weak and complaisant. They are ignoring threats of radical terrorist ideology and dismissing these as stray incidents while they can all be run up to a bigger terrorist problem.

Two decades ago the same thing happened in India and they were ignored by the media, politicians and the government. Though the few right wing politicians did scream foul and asked for stricter law enforcement against terrorists and those who collude with them. It never happened and since then India has lost more lives to terrorism than any other country in the past decade. I sure hope that someone in the US establishment wakes up and recognizes the real threat and takes action. That someone should be able to sway the government, the people and the media. Is there someone like that?

We will wait and watch... meanwhile I hope this cartoon can bring a smile on your faces.