Scott Horton Interviews Gareth Porter
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Please excuse the technical difficulties that cut this interview a bit short. Gareth Porter’s article can explain any partially-answered questions.
Gareth Porter, independent historian and journalist for IPS News, discusses US frustration with the Taliban’s highly effective IED attacks, which led to a change in strategy from house-to-house clearing to razing entire villages with airstrikes and bulldozers; problems with the official story, that Tarok Kalache residents abandoned their booby-trapped village long before US attacks started; and why razing a village is not a clear-cut war crime when it is “fortified” – a claim the US often made in Vietnam.
MP3 here. (14:47)
Gareth Porter is an independent historian and journalist. He is the author of Perils of Dominance: Imbalance of Power and the Road to War in Vietnam. His articles appear on Counterpunch, Huffington Post, Inter Press Service News Agency and Antiwar.com.
Claus Eric Hamle
February 21st, 2011 at 2:50 am
Can copters land on the roof of the US Embassy in Kabul ?
Bruce Richardson
February 21st, 2011 at 6:47 am
That an Afghan village is "fortified" and is therefore fair game does not stand up to scrutiny either legally or morally. The attack on and occupation of Afghanistan is contrary to international law of which the US is signatory. We therefore have no legal justification to attack any targets in Afghanistan. Were not NATO and the UN U.S. vassals, our leaders would likely be in the international dockett charged with war crimes.
Roger Lafontaine
February 21st, 2011 at 7:04 am
Destruction of villages must have happened well over 1000 times in Vietnam. Yet US still lost the war. But during the 60's the media was actually talking about the destruction thereby shaming the US internationally. Today's media has been retrained to hide all these crimes so as not to cause waves of revulsion among the populace. But now there's Al-Jazeera and RT and the internet so that may make the difference.
eCAHNomics
February 21st, 2011 at 9:14 am
IIRC, the Soviets also did this kind of total warfare (destruction of every building, man, woman & child) over even larger sections of Afghanistan. For all the "good" it did them.
William Fuller
February 21st, 2011 at 2:35 pm
The difference is that Iraq and Afganistan are being fought for Israel. Viet Nam was not. The mainstream media in the U.S. is nothing more than a propaganda machine for Israel.
liveload
February 22nd, 2011 at 6:38 am
If they didn't hate us for our freedoms so much, this wouldn't be necessary…