‘The Anguish of Afghanistan’

Thank you for your editorial on Afghanistan. It called attention to the Report of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights, which details the Soviet-sponsored genocide occurring in that unfortunate land. It seems that in this savage world, nothing equals this savagery of the Soviets and their pawns.

Your editorial set me to wondering once again why it is that such appalling conduct receives relatively little attention. As terrible as the events in South Africa are, they pale beside the atrocities in Afghanistan. Where are the reporters who should be keeping us at least as informed about events in Afghanistan as they do about South Africa, El Salvador, Chile, etc. Where are the television news stories and documentaries? Where are the rallies on college campuses; the congressional and legislative denunciations of this brutal conduct? I see little or no evidence of real concern. Why is our outrage so selective? Are we witnessing a repetition of the 1930s when Hitler’s brutality to the Jews went largely unnoticed? We know what happened to 6 million Jews during the next decade. Will we only wake up after the Soviet conquest of Afghanistan is completed and the reprisals begin?

LLOYD TEVIS

Los Osos