The CIA, the Taliban, Buddhas and the KLA

"All officials, including the Ministry of Vice and Virtue, have been 
given the go-ahead to destroy the statues", said the Taliban Information 
Minister. "The destruction work will be done by any means available. All 
the statues all over the country will be destroyed."

The statues in question are unique. They include two giant Buddhas cut from 
rock and dating back to the third and fifth centuries AD. There has been 
worldwide condemnation of this act of vandalism.

The response from the Taliban's supreme leader, Mullah Mohammed Omar, was 
dismissive of the pleas to preserve the statues and other works of art. "We 
do not understand why everybody is so worried. All we are breaking are 
stones."

Barbaric

Afghanistan is governed by what would have to be the most barbaric, extreme 
and oppressive government in the world. But who created the Taliban? The 
USA through its support of the most fanatical elements in Afghanistan 
during the war with the Soviet Union helped the Taliban's rise to power.

"US aid to the mujahideen went through the CIA. The CIA passed it on to its 
counterpart in Pakistan, the ISI (which doubles as the Pakistani secret 
police). The ISI passed it on to the political parties of exiles in 
Peshawar, from whom, in turn, it finally made its way, often much-reduced, 
to commanders inside Afghanistan.

"The ISI, as a matter of deliberate policy, favoured the most extreme 
Islamist organisations and ethnic separatists. The CIA went along, 
reasoning that the Islamists were the most immovably anti-communist groups 
available. The fact that they were also the most anti-Western does not seem 
to have entered their calculations". (Cosma Shalizi's review of "The Soviet 
Invasion and the Afghan Response, 1979-1982").

[The Taliban was one of the most extreme, religiously fanatical forces that 
came out of the Mujihadeen.]

Taliban school camps were established in Pakistan and thousands of children 
were indoctrinated with hatred and intolerance.

One of the most heinous crimes of the time was the kidnapping of Afghani 
children who were transported to these camps. The desperate pleas of Afghan 
families for the return of their children fell on deaf ears.

At the time the Soviet Union was the "aggressor" and the mujahideen were 
"freedom fighters".

Afghanistan had a population of 15 million that has now contracted to nine 
million. Six million people have been driven out of the country and are 
refugees in neighbouring countries or overseas.

The West has now turned against the Taliban, the USA's terrorist No 1, bin-
Laden, is in Afghanistan, even though in the past the CIA had also 
supported him.

Taliban forces have been actively engaged in murder and mayhem in Algiers, 
Bosnia, Kosovo, Chechnya. The Taliban commands vast amounts of drug money, 
and hence can arm itself with weapons, hire mercenaries and bribe its way 
in many places.

Mary Mostert, an analyst for "Banner of Liberty" comments: "What [our] 
policy has gotten us and Afghanistan is the most oppressive, most evil and 
the most violent of all the political groups in Afghanistan Taliban, when 
the people are also being destroyed. This says something of the values we 
have after eight years of Bill Clinton."

There is a similar story in Kosovo where the KLA was supported, financed 
and armed by courtesy of the CIA. The KLA has driven out Serbs, Gypsies, 
Jews and all others who are different from the fundamentalist Moslems who 
control the KLA under the protection of NATO troops.

"The monks in Decani Monastery were critical of Slobadan Milosevic and 
believed that co-existence was possible with their KLA neighbours two years 
ago. Today, their website shows pictures of demolished churches and dead 
priests", says Mary Mostert.

The NATO aggression against Yugoslavia saw churches, schools and hospitals 
blown up. That operation was called "Merciful Angel". Before that there was 
"Desert Storm" and, continuing to this day, the bombing of Iraq, otherwise 
known as "the cradle of civilisation".

Taliban has learnt well from its masters. Will the same passion being 
expressed about the Buddhas be extended to the people in Afghanistan and 
the Balkans who are suffering the consequences of the criminal policies of 
the capitalist rulers.