Date: 08 Aug 2010
AMERICANS AND OTHER ALLIED PEOPLE GETTING MURDERED BY TALIBAN IN AFGHANISTAN HAS BECOME A NORMAL NEWS ITEM AND WE JUST TAKE IT AS IF IT IS JUST ANOTHER NEWS ITEM.//////////// BUT please note:-/////////////// 1. That the more aid US gives Pakistan (Mrs. Clinton during her recent visit to Pakistan) gave a few billion dollars (perhaps five or six billion) to Pakistan to help fight the terrorists. Does it really happen? But as more and more aid is given to Pakistan, in billions and billion of dollars and weapons, the more Americans are now being killed in Afghanistan! That money, most of it is pocketed by the Pakistani Military and the Poltiicians and the weapons are given to Afghanistani Taliban etc. to fight and kill the white people and the Americans. ////////////// 2. For training a doctor or producing a doctor, who are in such a short supply, generations have to become involved before such an intelligent and lucky person gets born and becomes a doctor and that also an eye doctor. So, you can imagine what a great loss it is to the US, the nations involved and the whole world. It also goes to show how much progress US has made in containing Taliban, who are actively trained and supported by Pakistan, which has proven to be actively involved by the backdoor and is in all probability a rogue country as reported from many quarters. ////////// 3. While the US economy is faltering and unemployment is soaring, some of this money could be used within the country to create jobs and improve our economy. I suggest that in future any money over two hundred million or so is given to any country in a year for whatever reason, the president and administration must make a referendum and take public's approval. ///////////// 4. Also the passing of building a mosque next to ground zero, approved by the democrats, must be put to a referendum and public approval taken rather than sprinkling salt on the wounds of this great nation and especially of those who are still suffering the agony. //////////// 5. It also appears that the democrats have failed to deliver, and it is time, a chance be given to the Republicans during the future election(s) in order to improve things for the US and the world at large. ////////////////// SS AGRAWAL ///////////////// Taliban kills 10 medical aid workers in northern Afghanistan/////////// British surgeon Karen Woo and the team's leader, optometrist Tom Little from New York, are among those thought to be dead. (AP) ////////// Sunday, August 8, 2010 ////////// KABUL -- Gunmen killed 10 members of a medical team, including six Americans, traveling in the rugged mountains of northern Afghanistan, demonstrating the reach of insurgents far from their traditional havens and shocking the expatriate community here. /////////// The attack was one of the deadliest on civilian aid workers since the war began in 2001. That it occurred in Badakhshan province, a scenic mountain redoubt considered a peaceful refuge from the war, added to growing concern that the Taliban has seized on northern Afghanistan as its latest front. /////////// The dead have not been officially identified, and the bodies not yet returned to Kabul, but Afghan and Western officials said the victims were thought to be members of a medical team working with a Christian charity group that has decades of experience in Afghanistan. That team, from the International Assistance Mission, lost contact with its office in Kabul on Wednesday, two days before the attack, said Dirk Frans, the group's executive director. /////////// "We've got a team that has gone missing, and then there are 10 people found dead. At the moment we're working on the assumption that this is the same team," Frans said. /////////// The Taliban quickly asserted responsibility for the killings, saying the medical workers were "foreign spies" and were spreading Christianity. But police officials have not ruled out robbery as a motive, as the victims were stripped of their belongings after they were shot. /////////// The team members -- six Americans, one German, one Briton and four Afghans -- were returning from neighboring Nurestan province, where they had spent several days administering eye care to impoverished villagers. They were traveling unarmed and without security guards, Frans said. /////////// The dead are thought to include the team's leader, Tom Little, an optometrist from New York who had worked in Afghanistan over the past four decades. Little, a fluent Dari speaker, had been thrown out of the country by the Taliban in 2001 during a crackdown on Christian aid groups. Three of the victims are thought to be women, including Karen Woo, a British surgeon who had written on her blog about the possible risks of traveling to the area. ////// Two of the Afghans were unharmed. ///////// The group is registered as a Christian nonprofit organization. Although its members do not shy away from this affiliation in this conservative Muslim country, Frans and others said they do not proselytize. In their work since 1966 on health and economic development projects, under King Zahir Shah, the Russians, the mujaheddin government and the Taliban, Frans said, "all along we've been known as a Christian organization. That has been a nonissue." ////////////// "This is truly a bedrock institution in Afghanistan," said Andy M.A. Campbell, the Afghanistan country director for the National Democratic Institute. "They have been around for decades." ////////////// Others who have worked with the group described it as culturally sensitive to the Muslim values of Afghanistan and staffed by foreigners committed to long-term development work in the country. "This is not a Mickey Mouse organization," said a person who has worked for and evaluated the organization's projects in the past. ///////////// The Taliban has targeted foreign aid workers in the past but such attacks are relatively rare, and insurgents have allowed some aid groups safe passage into areas they control. In August 2008, gunmen killed three women from the International Rescue Committee and their Afghan driver in Logar province. Four years earlier, 11 Chinese road workers were shot to death in Kunduz province. //////////////// 000000000