Afghanistan - Civilians, Missionaries

Interview: Khaled Hosseini, Kabul's Splendid Son
By Michael Mechanic - Mother Jones

.... Now a full-time writer and goodwill envoy for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, he is skeptical that sending more US troops can bring his homeland back from the brink. "We're not going to win this war with bullets and guns," he says. "There has to be a broader plan."

.... The coalition is not perceived as a hostile occupying force, but there's growing anger thanks to a series of catastrophic military air attacks that have killed civilians, consisting on more than one occasion of mostly women and children. The danger of the military surge is that it will escalate the conflict. If civilian casualties continue to mount, it will create this confrontational dynamic, which only helps the insurgency and their recruiting efforts. The scale of the conflict has changed, and the job has become a whole lot more difficult.

Afghan civilian deaths: Who is to blame?
By Laura King - LAT

.... "We blame America," he said. "With all their technology, they don't determine who is a fighter and who is an innocent. Now my house is gone. My wife is dead. My children are burned." But the other father, Malham, was angrier at the Taliban."I say this to them," he said in a low voice, glancing over to make sure he was not frightening his daughter with the vehemence of his tone. "May God bring their houses down on their heads."

.... Roshan, along with some others, complained that the governor, Rohul Amin, initially downplayed the extent of the disaster because he has close ties to the Americans. By late afternoon, angry villagers showed up outside the governor's compound with two truckloads of bodies, about three dozen in all. Two days later, hundreds of angry demonstrators besieged the governor's compound, shouting anti-American slogans.

Afghanistan: Bible Blitzkrieg
A fundamentalist Christian movement within the US military seeks to convert locals to the detriment of US strategy in Afghanistan.
By Jody Ray Bennett - ISN Security Watch

.... The Pentagon has stated that the stacks of Bibles that were translated into local Pashto and Dari languages and were intended for public distribution in Afghanistan by the organization have been confiscated and destroyed.

.... representatives of the US military who are already largely seen by opposing sides as a part of a neo-Christian crusade.

.... “The British imperial army was often preceded by Christian missionaries in its African conquests […] The US has evolved a more efficient system integrating the missionary function into the military itself.”

.... these sorts of movements within the US military are not a fringe phenomenon, but rather ubiquitous: “There are so many para-church organizations [within the US military]: the Worldwide Military Baptist Missions, the Soldiers Bible Ministry, the Campus Crusades Military Ministry. You can’t count them all. This is how bad it is.