Yon Returns to Afghanistan
BY Herschel Smith
13 years, 9 months ago
Michael Yon returns to Afghanistan, and he has given us a remarkable picture of the men of Chora (in the Oruzgan Province) honoring a dead Taliban.
Today, I accompanied members of Central Asia Development Group (CADG). We drove from the town of Tarin Kot to the violent village of Chora. A quick web search for Chora will reveal countless articles about the heavy fighting. We took an extremely dangerous stretch of road. We saw nary a soldier, though I am told many have died here. Leonard Grami, the Urozgan Provincial Manager for CADG, reckons well over a hundred troops and Afghans have died on this stretch in the last 14 months, including some last week and last night.
Somehow we made it to Chora and saw that the USAID project seems to be doing fine, but while the managers checked the work, Afghan authorities dumped the body of a Taliban killed last night in nearby in fighting. They dumped him at a “traffic circle” underneath what they call “the steeple.” Men and boys flocked to the body and were so tight around him that they must have been almost stepping on him. When we arrived, they pulled back for a moment, and I made a panorama of these dangerous men.
Make sure to stop by Michael’s place and tool around the panorama link combining multiple pictures Michael took. My initial thoughts are that if these men engage in such honorific behavior openly and in public for a dead insurgent, and if they admire the man and his work to this extent, then we are not winning this war. We haven’t marginalized the insurgency, or anywhere near it. A picture is worth a thousand words.
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