Nederland en Afghanistan 26

De bekende Amerikaanse columnist Robert Scheer schrijft in Truthdig: '“Al Qaeda is quickly changing and we are not,” warned Timothy J. Roemer, a member of the bipartisan 9/11 Commission appointed by President Bush, last month. “Al Qaeda is highly dynamic and we are not. Al Qaeda is highly imaginative and we are not.” Yet, in his speeches, Bush clings to the notion that the battle against terrorism is going well because, according to his spin, we have been able to eliminate it in Afghanistan and are now destroying the last vestiges of this scourge in Iraq. On his visit to Kabul last month, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld elaborated on this absurdity by declaring bloody, backward Afghanistan as a “model” of progress in the War on Terror - even as he admitted that “Iraq is several years behind.” Rumsfeld’s claim of progress was treated as ridiculous by Afghan security officials interviewed in a BBC survey of opinion following the defense secretary’s visit. “We are very worried now,” one senior police official told the BBC. “The Taliban and Al Qaeda are getting more threatening.” Last Sunday, U.S. sources claimed to have targeted Osama’s second-in-command with the bombing of a village on the Pakistan side of the border with Afghanistan. But, as is so often the case when applying air power to non-military targets, the corpses left in the debris of a devastated village did not include the intended target. In the aftermath, American flags were once again burning in the region as anti-American protests swept Pakistan.' Lees verder: http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20060118_meanwhile_back_in_afghanistan/ Dat De Hoop Scheffer door de Amerikanen werd uitgekozen als secretaris-generaal van de NAVO, betekent nog niet dat de Nederlandse kiezer het kabinet Balkenende zijn gang moet laten gaan.