Back up rhetoric with aid on ground

There have been reports recently that the administration is moving aggressively to counter anti-American propaganda by releasing information about the Taliban’s atrocities and refutations of Taliban claims. That’s a big relief. Experts on the Middle East have consistently warned that the battle for Middle East public opinion is a critical part of the U.S. war on terrorism. The White House is moving in the right direction by taking this battle seriously.

Now that the administration is entering the information war, they need to support their words with deeds. They should use the Northern Alliance’s debt to America to pressure anti-Taliban leaders to cooperate in building a new Afghan government that respects human rights and represents all the countries’ ethnic groups, and they should increase food aid to prevent starvation in the areas where the U.S. has been fighting. Our words will carry far more weight if they’re backed up with deeds that demonstrate real concern for the fate of innocent Afghan people caught in the middle of this war.

Lynnwood

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