Unremarked Graves

After 9/11, a violent American reaction was inevitable. Mahatma Gandhi would have bombed Afghanistan. It was no more surprising that the enemies of the Taliban automatically became our friends, regardless of their own questionable behavior. We don’t criticize the dictators-for-life of Egypt or Pakistan either. In fact, we didn’t have anything but praise for the Taliban and Ben Laden when they were on our side in the Cold War. None of this bothers or at least surprises me since Real Politik makes for peculiar alliances, even discounting the ideology affinity, bordering on envy, that the current administration has consistently shown for authoritarian regimes. We should be clear headed about whom we’re supporting, however; and that’s yet another reason to bewail the absence of a free press in the United States.

The Northern Alliance did most of the fighting for us during the initial Afghanistan operation. In the process, they are now reported to have massacred something on the order of 3,000 prisoners and buried them in a mass grave. Story. Of course the story may turn out to be false or exaggerated. It may just as easily be understated. My point is that in the United States, it is simply unreported.