Korean Hostages in Afghanistan: Their Deaths Will Be America's Fault?
According to Marmot's Hole, the Korean press is all set to blame America if the Taliban makes good its threat to kill the 23 (whoops, now 22) Korean Christian-evangelists currently held hostage. The logic looks something like this: Afghan President Hamid Karzai won't negotiate with the Taliban because America and Great Britain tell him not to. Since Afghanistan relies upon foreign aid, the press concludes, Karzai dares not offend America or our allies. Its our fault.
Anyone who buys that might want to consider that President Karzai
- Doesn’t want to turn kidnapping into a lucrative business, and more to the point
- Realizes that Korea’s contribution to the fight against the Taliban has been next to nil, and its 200 non-combat troops will be withdrawn by the end of the year
- Knows that realeasing enemies of his state back into the population at large is an invitation to greater mayhem.
While I'm tubthumping about Afghanistan, can you imagine how President Clinton would have been excoriated (or hell, any of the last five or six Presidents for the lack of any progress on catching Osama Bin Laden?