Failed Attack on U.S. Base Rattles an Afghan Valley

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/18/world/asia/failed-attack-on-us-base-rattles-panjshir-valley-in-afghanistan.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=panjshir&st=cse

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: barry levine 
Date: Tue, Oct 18, 2011 at 10:43 AM
Subject: re: Failed Attack on U.S. Base Rattles an Afghan Valley
To: letters@nytimes.com


To the Editor:

    To acknowledge that the Taliban are "Pashtun anchored" is much like acknowledging that the Ku Klux Klan is "white anchored". Without being false, it fails to convey what's going on. Of forty-four million Pashtun divided between Afghanistan and Pakistan, a minority constitute the Taliban. But that minority is determined to either impose their mores and culture on  all of Afghanistan or to have a state of their own. There is no place in their ideology for a free multi-ethnic Afghanistan. Ashfaq Kayani of course prefers that Pashtunistan be carved out of Afghanistan if it is to be created at all, rather than out of his Pakistan. To this end he has continued to harbor and fund the Haqqani network, even when they are killing Americans.  The U.S. has no dog in this fight. The sooner we're out of there, the better.

Barry Haskell Levine