Bush’s Deal With Afghanistan

Robert Scheer’s commentary (“Bush’s Faustian Deal With the Taliban,” May 22) has keen insight into an administration whose policies are driven by simple-minded domestic policy. But what is good policy on Afghanistan? European governments seem to be giving their support to the U.N.-recognized United Front, which is multiethnic, pro-women’s rights, pro-democracy, pro-tolerance and pro-relations with the world.

Is President Bush so blind he can’t see that Ahmed Shah Massoud and the United Front are the last front against the Taliban, terrorism and the further decline of Afghanistan? America is the United Front’s ally, but Bush’s ally seems to be the Taliban.

Erik Gauger

Redondo Beach

*

I am outraged at the Bush administration’s gift of $43 million to the Taliban in Afghanistan. This totalitarian regime must not be supported in any fashion, even in the purported war on drugs. A May 22 news story reported the Taliban’s intention to require Hindus to wear identification on their clothing. As the wife of a Hindu man, I am deeply saddened and angry that the lessons of Hitler and the Nazis have not been learned.

The United States must do everything in its power to safeguard human rights throughout the world and not only look out for its own interests.

Sharon Raghavachary

La Crescenta

*

Scheer’s column on Bush’s “deal” with the Taliban omitted important facts. The $43 million in humanitarian aid comes largely in the form of food supplies. It is also not a new policy; according to the State Department, the United States sent $114 million in aid to Afghanistan last year. Accusing Bush of entering into a deal with the Taliban by providing desperately needed food to starving people--especially when the Clinton administration did the same thing--is at best disingenuous and at worst an outright deception.

Such a story is especially frustrating for those of us who work every day to spread the truth about the misdeeds of the Bush administration.

Jesse Berney

San Francisco

*

So now, after receiving a boatload of American taxpayer dollars, the Afghan leaders have decided to require all Hindu citizens to wear an identifying patch (May 23). It’s not exactly an original idea.

And our money goes to a “humanitarian” cause ... straight into Swiss numbered bank accounts. Nice of us to sponsor genocide, plus the mutilation and destruction of statues that are world-renowned art treasures.

Dave Weiner

Malibu