I agree with all that you said regarding more lasting words by the US.
>I heard some Afghanis were actually convinced by the Talibans that the
>food dropped by US airplanes was poisonned, and starved to death
>instead of eating it...
According to the same issue of The Economist, perhaps the truer story
is this:
The food drops by the U.S. are the same yellow color as the cluster
bombs. Some number of civilians have gotten blown up that way because
not all of the cluster bombs blow up on impact, and so are pushed by
the winds and lie on the ground as deadly as the landmines
(Afghanistan is one of the most heavily mined countries in the world
now with hundreds of new landmine victims every month).
The bomblets look like soda-water cans and are the same color as the
food packs being dropped by the American aircraft. The Americans have
been broadcasting radio messages instructing Afghans how to
distininghush the bombs from the "halal and very nutritional" food
drops. The article said that the color of the food drops will soon be
changed.
Amara
--************************************************************************ Amara Graps, PhD | Max-Planck-Institut fuer Kernphysik Heidelberg Cosmic Dust Group | Saupfercheckweg 1 +49-6221-516-543 | 69117 Heidelberg, GERMANY Amara.Graps@mpi-hd.mpg.de * http://www.mpi-hd.mpg.de/dustgroup/~graps ************************************************************************ "Never fight an inanimate object." - P. J. O'Rourke
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