As for Afghanistan, the American CIA worked behind the scenes to bring on the Soviet invasion of 1979, then engaged the Soviet Empire in a way that brought about the near-total devastation of Afghanistan and a huge uncounted death toll. Then it was the U.S. and its key allies Saudi Arabia and Pakistan that brought on the Taliban hoping to end the anarchy left by the earlier war and to set-up another regional "client regime"...this one to be a kind of derivative "client regime" of our bigger and more important "client regimes" in Riyadh and Islamabad. And now, if U.S. and British policies prevail, millions of Afghanis will be dead by this time next year, mostly of starvation and disease, reminiscent of the unconscionable policies the U.S. pursued in Southeast Asia where many millions of Cambodians, Laostians and Vietnamese (plus 50,000+ Americans) paid the horrible price for what wiz-kid and Pentagon chief of that day Robert McNamara recently admitted was "a terrible mistake."

[The Observer - Sunday October 21, 2001]: The United Nations is set to issue an unprecedented appeal to the United States and its coalition allies to halt the war on Afghanistan and allow time for a huge relief operation.

UN sources in Pakistan said growing concern over the deteriorating humanitarian situation in the country - in part, they say, caused by the relentless bombing campaign - has forced them to take the radical step. Aid officials estimate that up to 7.5 million Afghans might be threatened with starvation.

'The situation is completely untenable inside Afghanistan. We really need to get our point across here and have to be very bold in doing it. Unless the [US air] strikes stop, there will be a huge number of deaths,' one UN source said.

The move will embarrass Clare Short, the International Development Secretary, who said last week that there was no 'cause and effect' between the bombing and the ability of aid agencies to deliver much-needed food and shelter.

Aid workers yesterday strongly rejected Short's statements. 'Basically the bombing makes it difficult to get enough supplies in. It is as simple as that,' an Islamabad-based aid official told The Observer .

Dominic Nutt, a spokesman for the British charity Christian Aid, called Short's remarks sickening. 'Needy people are being put at risk by government spin-doctors who are showing a callous disregard for life,' he said. 'To say that there is no link is not just misleading but profoundly dangerous.' Christian Aid report 600 people have already died in the Dar-e-Suf region of northern Afghanistan due to starvation, malnutrition and related diseases.

Other agencies confirmed that the sick, the young and the old are already dying in refugee camps around the northern city of Mazar-e-Sharif.

The World Food Programme has calculated that 52,000 tonnes of wheat must be distributed in Afghanistan each month to stave off mass starvation. Since the aid programme was restarted - on 25 September - only 20,000 tonnes have been supplied and 15,000 distributed. The concern is that the coming winter will make relief efforts more difficult. The first snows have already fallen on the Hindu Kush mountains and the isolated highlands of Hazarajat.

But though the WFP is accelerating the supply of food, it says it is unlikely to be able to bring in more than two-thirds of what is required. And it is clear that little aid is reaching the most remote areas where the need is greatest.

A new assessment by aid workers on the ground in Afghanistan will be presented to UN co-ordinators in Islamabad this week. It shows that the effects of the three-year drought that has hit Afghanistan are far worse than previously thought. Areas in the north-east are of particular concern.

In the western city of Herat food deliveries are barely keeping up with demand from the 1,000 people a day who are arriving at refugee camps.

'We are getting a significant amount of food into the country and we are desperately trying to get it to more remote areas. The usual distribution networks are hugely disrupted. At the moment a trickle is getting through,' said Michael Huggins, a spokesman for the WFP.

He said the WFP operation was hampered by a lack of truck drivers willing to carry food through Afghanistan because of the bombing raids, high fuel prices and communication difficulties.

The Taliban have also caused problems for aid agencies. A series of offices have been looted in major cities, prompting French agency Médecins Sans Frontières to shut down its entire Afghan operation. There have been a number of attempts to steal vehicles from aid agencies. The Taliban have also delayed relief convoys by demanding high taxes on their passage.

Although the expected influx of refugees to Pakistan has yet to occur, there are signs of larger shifts of population than before. The last three days have seen more than 10,000 people cross the border from Afghanistan around the Taliban stronghold of Kandahar.

Refugees report a breakdown in law and order in Kandahar. 'It is impossible to live there now,' one said.

[The Observer - Sunday October 21, 2001]: The Afghan refugee situation on the borders of Pakistan is becoming increasingly serious, with thousands more still trapped in the war-torn country, it was reported today.

A day after at least 5,000 Afghanistan refugees crossed into Pakistan - the largest single one-day exodus since the US-led military campaign began - aid agencies today described the severity of the problems they face in getting food safely to starving people in Afghanistan.

They said the situation had got worse even in the four days since the prime minister, Tony Blair, rejected charities' pleas for a halt in the bombing.

A "climate of fear" prevents truckers and labourers loading or unloading food, driving deep into Afghanistan, or staying overnight in Afghan towns, they said.

Oxfam International spokesman Sam Barratt insisted that the US ground assaults in Afghanistan, which began yesterday, must also be suspended for supplies to get through safely.

Speaking from the Pakistan capital, Islamabad, he said: "From the information we have received from our staff, we are getting no food through to keep what is a very vulnerable population alive this winter."

UNHCR, the United Nations refugee agency, said no food aid was getting through to Afghan refugees on the border with Pakistan at Chaman.

The situation was becoming increasingly desperate as numbers there have swelled to 15,000. None of the refugees are allowed to cross the border.

"At this point agencies are not being allowed across into Afghanistan at Chaman," said UNHCR spokeswoman Jennifer Clark. "We have sent supplies up to the border today but because the border is closed it is not getting through."

Oxfam said some food had started to move in, but the charity dismissed international development secretary Clare Short's assertion that enough was getting through.

The worst affected area, Hazarajat, in the central highlands of Afghanistan, had received none at all and people would start dying soon, Mr Barratt said.

"The ministry for international development cannot simply draw the curtains on Afghanistan and pretend that everything is going to be OK.

"Unless we start receiving food in these areas of Hazarajat, thousands or possibly more people will die this winter."

Most aid agencies had had vehicles or supplies stolen in Afghanistan, while the bombing made it hazardous for their drivers to reach the needy.

Mr Barratt added: "There is a climate of fear wrapped around Afghanistan, making it well nigh impossible to do enough to keep people alive.

Oxfam International, Islamic Relief, Christian Aid, Cafod, Tear Fund and ActionAid joined together last week to call for a temporary pause in bombing for supplies to be allowed in.

Christian Aid spokesman Dominic Nutt said the west had just days left to save lives.

There are currently 9,000 tonnes of UN food stocks in warehouses in Afghanistan - just two weeks' supply - and an estimated 5.5m people are short of food.

Around 400,000 are thought to have run out of food altogether, while 2m do not have enough food to last the winter.

The most pressing emergency is the 0.5m Afghans who face being cut off by snow in mid-November. To avoid massive loss of life, the UN estimates over 50,000 tonnes of food must be moved into Afghanistan in the next month.

Speaking to a gathering of religious leaders, Mr. Farrakhan said the U.S. government hadn't revealed the evidence to the Taliban, sharing it only with allies.

"You show your friend [British Prime Minister Tony Blair] the evidence, but not the people you're about to bomb?" he said.

U.S. and British officials have said that revealing the details of the evidence would compromise allied war aims.

Mr. Farrakhan keynoted a conference organized by the Interreligious and International Federation for World Peace, a group organized by Rev. Sun Myung Moon, founder of the Unification Church. The conference included a hundred ministers from several religious denominations, and political figures, including former Vice President Dan Quayle, former Indonesian President Abudurrahman Wahid and the former presidents and prime ministers of Guyana, Guatemala, Barbados, Seychelles, Nepal and St. Kitts and Nevis.

Most of them applauded often during Mr. Farrakhan's 100-minute speech and gave him a standing ovation afterward. The theme of the conference was an examination of the roots of global violence and how to deal with it. Mr. Quayle, who had left the gathering by the time Mr. Farrakhan spoke, had earlier angrily rejected suggestions that U.S. foreign policy in Iraq and the Middle East had provoked terrorist attacks. "This is the time to be morally clear," Mr. Quayle said. "Nothing justifies terrorism."

Mr. Farrakhan, the leader of the nation's largest Muslim group, said the pursuit of bin Laden and his terrorist group was a campaign against Islam. He said he also condemns the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks against the United States, which killed 5,000 Americans. "It was so horrific to me that for the first 48 hours I could not speak," he said.

Mr. Farrakhan said, without citing his evidence, that 1.5 million Iraqis had died under sanctions imposed by the United Nations after the 1991 Persian Gulf war "while we are crying over 5,000."

In his remarks, Rev. Moon, who spoke before Mr. Farrakhan's denunciation of U.S. war aims, called on world leaders to repudiate national self-interests and hatreds, and urged religious leaders to cooperate and seek reconciliation. "If religions demonstrate love for each other, cooperate with each other, and serve each other, putting the higher ideal of peace ahead of particular doctrines, rituals and cultural backgrounds, the world will change dramatically."

Mr. Quayle, who served as vice president under President George H.W. Bush, said that fear, unlike anthrax, is contagious. He urged the religious figures to preach messages of tolerance. Mr. Quayle also blamed Hollywood for giving foreigners a distorted picture of the United States.

"Have you ever seen a movie that made the military look good? That looked favorably upon religion? That showed the cohesiveness of the family? No - and why not?" he asked. "If you were a person who had never been to America, you'd see a different country than it actually is."

Mr. Wahid, a Muslim cleric who served as president of Indonesia from Oct. 1999 until July 2001, said he supported the American military attacks, which are unpopular with Indonesians, but warned against "hegemony".

"What the United States is doing is honorable, but it is important to remember the multilateral framework," Mr. Wahid said. In an interview, he said that Washington "needs to listen to other people, and they need to listen to the United States."

The former presidents and prime ministers of several Latin and Caribbean nations said that it was important to look at what they call the root causes of terrorism - poverty, poor education and an absence of hope.

Mid-East Realities

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Source: http://www.middleeast.org/articles/2001/10/482.htm