generalspeaking

Monday, January 29, 2018

Networking With Death in Kabul

"This murderous attack renews our resolve and that [of] our Afghan partners."

"The Taliban's cruelty will not prevail. The United States is committed to a secure Afghanistan that is free from terrorists who would target Americans, our allies, and anyone who does not share their wicked ideology."

"Now, all countries should take decisive action against the Taliban and the terrorist infrastructure that supports them."

U.S. President Donald Trump

"[The attack was] nothing short of an atrocity [targeting a civilian area]."

"While the Taliban claim suggested the purpose of the attack was to target police, a massive vehicle bomb in a densely populated area could not reasonably be expected to leave civilians unharmed." Tadamichi Yamamoto, head, UN mission in Afghanistan

A wounded woman is assisted at the site of the attack Saturday in Kabul. CNN

"[The attacks do] not impact our commitment to Afghanistan, our commitment to the mission and seeing this through and our commitment about making sure that the Afghan national security forces have what they need to deal with this particular enemy,"

"As horrible as this is, to me, it strengthens our resolve to help them move forward."

Gen. Joseph Votel, head, U.S. Central Command

The Taliban are becoming more ambitious, week after week. Success makes them more avaricious in harvesting humans and delivering them to Death. One week ago, a thirteen-hour standoff with Afghan security forces at Kabul's Intercontinental Hotel, this week another well-coordinated attack, this one taking a page out of a Hamas book, with the use of two ambulances to convey suicide bombers to their well-chosen place of attack, yet another secure and secured area where no such attacks should take place in a world of reasonable and reliable security.

How clever is that, how without conscience and utterly depraved, to use a vehicle meant to transport the wounded, recognized by international agencies as inviolable to the pathology of perversion? To receive immediate clearance by explaining an ambulance is taking a wounded person to hospital, gaining entry past the first checkpoint, and at the second checkpoint those tasked to safeguard the premises instantly recognizing the ruse, paying for it with their lives when the suicide vest was activated.

A massive concussion that took the lives of another 103 human beings in a succession of barbaric attacks where the greater the number of casualties the more satisfaction ensues on the part of the psychopaths whose agenda is fully engorged with their mission to slaughter those who oppose their goal of once again controlling Afghanistan to impose their very special brand of fundamentalist Sharia on the entire country, controlled by ignorant, brutal mullahs whose dedication to Islamism is not without its own brand of corruption.

Among the total of 235 people who were wounded in the attack, were 30 police officers whom the Taliban claimed represented the focus of their attack. So to succeed in their mission, the violence injuring or killing another 300 people who just happened inconveniently to be in the way. Last week 22 people died at the international hotel, this week 103 deaths, garnering much satisfaction in a job well accomplished for those who consider themselves warriors of Islam, and scholars of impeccable wisdom, reflecting Koranic values.

Between them, the Taliban and ISIL, comprised largely of former Taliban figures for whom ISIL's appeal as a more monstrously vicious killing machine represented the greater attraction, are making one huge, unpredictable graveyard out of a country whose history accustomed it to conflict, destruction and death, unable to free itself from the deadly, never-ending cycle.