Happy Valentine's Day.
Posted on 02/13/2002 4:46:48 PM PST by invaderzim
KABUL -- Victims of the ongoing U.S. bombing campaign in Afghanistan gathered outside the U.S. Embassy in Kabul Wednesday to demand compensation for their losses.
Among the victims were 21-year-old Aziz Ullah, whose left leg was sliced off by a piece of flying shrapnel, and 34-year-old Abdul Bashir, who lost "my beautiful daughter" when a bomb exploded near where she was playing in the street in October.
Orfa Abdulahmad, meanwhile, tearfully told reporters how she had lost eight members of her family when her home was hit by a wayward bomb soon after the air raids began on October 7, AFP reported.
The demands for compensation come amid a new outcry over the civilian toll of the bombing campaign.
Afghan officials have said a CIA missile strike last week in eastern Khost Province killed three poor villagers, not Al-Qaeda fighters as the Pentagon has suggested.
The victims outside the embassy on Wednesday suffered their losses during the early stage of the bombings, which are aimed at destroying the Al-Qaeda network of Osama bin Laden, the Saudi-born dissident accused of masterminding the September 11 terrorist attacks.
The U.S. government has set aside one million dollars to pay medical expenses of Afghans who have lost limbs in the bombing but the funds, to be distributed through the U.S. agency for international development, have yet to reach Afghanistan.
Marla Ruzicka, program coordinator for the global exchange non-governmental organization which is behind efforts to pressure the U.S. government to compensate victims of the bombings, called for the immediate establishment of a 20-million-dollar fund.
"The victims need homes now. Aziz Ullah needs a leg now. They can't wait months and months," she told the gathering.
Ruzicka, 25, added that 20 million dollars was less than the 30 million dollars spent each day by the U.S. government on bombing Afghanistan.
One survey carried out by a U.S. researcher said there were at least 3,767 civilian casualties between October 7 and December 6 alone. Other independent estimates have put the toll at around 1,000.
Tit for tat has to stop somewhere, and no, reparations are not the answer. I'm sorry for their loss. And that's the end of it. Period.
Happy Valentine's Day.
You, kevlinsky, have used words like Warlords to describe the Bush administration......so please consider my opinion coming from a Warloardette....
I am all for war if it brings peace,keeps me living in Freedom and liberty and fights communists in any country.Our military, our Veterans, should be treated like Kings, they are thr true heroes of America.
War is not one on one aiming at each other and not hurting those in the area that are not armed. Some wars America has been in the innocent LOOKING at NOT that innocent anyway. Just ask a Vet, they can tell you first hand.I have no tears for the so called innocent in those wars, they were helping the enemy.hey were FOR the enemy and aided them.
If you are living in America, you should thank GOd every day for our military and our Commander in Chief, Rummy etc. for the GREAT decisions they have made to let our military fight this war against terrorists that stuck America " IN Country".They are keeping YOU safe to put your head on your pillow at night and sleep without sirens in the streets and deathes....MORE deaths of those living here.
If you did that they would wind up ruling France after the little frog-eaters surrendered to their women.
I agree. On Fox tonght they were saying that the Afghan people, even those who have suffered great loss (one man had lost 3 of his children) blamed Osama and the Taliban and were glad that America had freed them that it might be better for their children. Leave it to the liberal litigants in America to create an issue where there isn't one.
The Global Exchange group has splintered, perhaps.
The "families" who went on the Afghan trip sponsored by Global Exchange have set up their own guilt-trip group "September Eleventh Families for Peaceful Tomorrows."
I found it in a story in a Feb. 13 San Jose paper:
Here's the group's website
The site's "Press Release" says they've chosen Valentine's Day to start their group, campaign for payments to Afghans, and send a Valentine card to Bush.
They strike me as a group of already constructed guilt-lefties now confronted with death of a family member. How to respond? One thing is for sure, not to change and evolve. Here's a statement:
“We believe that the American people have been denied a dialogue on appropriate responses to the events of September 11,” said David Potorti, East Coast Co-Director of Peaceful Tomorrows, who lost his brother at the World Trade Center. “Our single-minded rush to war has been made without thoughtful consideration of long-term consequences for our safety, security, and freedom. We will use our voices to promote a discussion about better solutions, ones based on justice, not vengeance.”
I love this, "denied a dialogue." In other words, lefty speak for I didn't have anything meaningful to say, no one listened to me, and instead of considering if I'm wrong here, proclaim that my moral superiority is unheard because of censorship. Jeez, these lefties often talk this way - they are in complete denial.
Maybe we should e-mail them some Osama quotes, like:
"This clearly indicates the nature of this war. This war is fundamentally religious. The people of the East are Muslims. They sympathized with Muslims against the people of the West, who are the crusaders. Those who try to cover this crystal clear fact, which the entire world has admitted, are deceiving the Islamic nation. They are trying to deflect the attention of the Islamic nation from the truth of this conflict. This fact is proven in the book of God Almighty and in the teachings of our messenger, may God's peace and blessings be upon him. Under no circumstances should we forget this enmity between us and the infidels. For, the enmity is based on creed. Muslims must stand together. We must be loyal to the believers and those who believe that there is no God but Allah. We should also renounce the atheists and infidels. It suffices me to seek God's help against them. God says: "Never will the Jews or the Christians be satisfied with thee unless thou follow their form of religion."
Do you think this might open their eyes that other people genuinely hate them, and want to see them dead for the very values they espouse? Nah, probably not. :)
There's quotes on the web from some members. The home site itself has a links page to relevant articles. Here's a quote from Robin Theurkauf, Ply Sci professor at Yale, who lost her husband on 911 gained the composure to say as early as Sept. 28:
The Bush administration's unilateralism has been revealed to be hollow. Rather than infringe on our sovereignty, international institutions enhance our ability to perform the functions of national government, including the ability to fight international crime.
Right, sovereignty.
The site's "Press Release" says they've chosen Valentine's Day to start their group, campaign for payments to Afghans, and send a Valentine card to Bush.
But don't they know that Valentine's Day is evil? How out of touch they are with their Islamic brothers and sisters!
Can you now help with this one? Who's the wacky psycho lefty "kevlinski" whose dull blathering has become so much in evidence on this thread?
Mass starvation averted in Afghanistan New Scientist | 16:20 04 January 02 | Emma Young A large influx of food aid into Afghanistan in December 2001 has averted widespread famine in the country, say officials at the UN's World Food Programme. "There was a lot of fear that there was going to be a famine. But I think that has been averted now," says WFP spokesman Francis Mwanza. "In December, the WFP delivered 116,000 tonnes of food into Afghanistan. The amount we needed to move in was 52,000 tonnes - so we more than doubled it." In early December, aid agencies warned that millions of people in Afghanistan were at risk of starvation. Heavy snowfalls ...
From the above link:
Claire Lopez, a former CIA operations officer, a strategic policy and intelligence expert with a focus on Middle East, national defense... emailed her friend Allen West:
“What none of these media is reporting is that the father’s (SGT Bowe Bergdahl’s father Bob) first words at the WH were in Arabic – those words were “bism allah alrahman alraheem” – which means “in the name of Allah the most gracious and most merciful” – these are the opening words of every chapter of the Qur’an except one (the chapter of the sword – the 9th) – by uttering these words on the grounds of the WH, Bergdahl (the father) sanctified the WH and claimed it for Islam. There is no question but POTUS knows this.”
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