"Thousands of Afghans have taken to the streets for the second day in northwestern Afghanistan to protest the killing of four people in a night raid by NATO forces this month. While many residents of the city of Taloqan (in addition to the local police force) claim that those killed were innocent, NATO has maintained that they were armed rebels. So far, protesters have stormed a military base and burned a police station.
Echoed by the media, Western forces have claimed that the protests have been infiltrated and hijacked by members of the Taliban. Whether this is true is dubious, and no proof has been provided. The smear of Taliban infiltration is used to de-legitimize the protest itself. The reality is that Afghan anger at the occupation of their country runs deep enough that thousands were willing to turn out two days in a row to protest the killings.
Protests in Afghanistan are frequent – just a few days before there was a protest in Nargahar province after a fifteen year old boy was shot to death in a housing raid. Last month saw tens of thousands of people demonstrate against the burning of the Qur’an by Florida pastor Terry Jones over five days. During these and many other protests there were vocal anti-occupation slogans and attacks on UN forces, soldiers and police.
Public anger in Afghanistan will be the death of the occupation, since it is public anger – over the murder of civilians, over the obliteration of villages by US air power, over the occupation itself – that drives the insurgency."The "insurgency" has always been against the occupation and Vichy government empire put in place.
No comments:
Post a Comment