Robert Fisk, A Poet on the Run in Fortress Europe

More at link... login required... sorry. Last sentence.... mighty strange.

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/fisk/article324956.ece
Robert Fisk: A poet on the run in Fortress Europe
I can't help you, I say. I will write about you. I will try to pump some compassion out of the authorities
Published: 05 November 2005


Mohamed sits on the chair beside me in Amsterdam and opens his little book of poetry. His verse slopes down the page in delicate Persian script, the Dari language of his native Afghanistan. "God, why in the name of Islam is there all this killing, why all this anti-people killing ... the only chairs left in my country are chairs for the government, those who want to destroy Afghanistan." He reads his words of anger slowly, gently interrupted by an old chiming Dutch clock. Outside, the Herengracht canal slides gently beneath the rain. It would be difficult to find anywhere that least resembles Kabul.

"The donkeys came to Afghanistan, Massoud, Rahbani and the rest," Mohamed reads on. "All the people were waiting for the donkeys. Gulbudin said these donkeys have no tails - 'only I have a tail, so I shall have a ministry,' he said. The donkeys are now in the government." Donkeys may be nice, friendly beasts to us, but to call anyone in the Muslim world a khar - a donkey - is as insulting as you can get. Mohamed was talking about the "mujahedin" guerrilla fighters who moved into Kabul after the Russian withdrawal in 1990, an arrival that presaged years of civil war atrocities which left at least 65,000 Afghans dead. This was the conflict which so sickened the anti-Soviet fighter Osama bin Laden that he left Afghanistan for Sudan.

Article Length: 1039 words (approx.)

the ghost of 9/11

I've been spying for a few years - thought it was time to join in.