Word: bashar
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...report of Afghan warlord Haji Bashar Noorzai [Feb. 19], you said that "the world changed on Sept. 11, 2001." The world didn't change. Global warming is still here, the poor are poor, the rich are rich, Africans are dying of AIDS, and malaria kills millions of children every year. The "world" changed for a fraction of the earth's population, mostly Americans, their allies and those who have been suffering from their attacks. Please be less ethno- and egocentric. The U.S. is not the world...
Afghan warlord and opium cultivator Haji Bashar Noorzai could be an intelligence source the U.S. needs to combat terrorism, but he's sitting in jail on drug charges. He has offered to help, and as the wars on both drugs and terrorism rage on, readers debated the wisdom of his incarceration...
Your article on Afghan warlord Haji Bashar Noorzai listed possible negative consequences of his arrest [Feb 19]. Assured by a U.S. agent that the trip would be "like a vacation," Noorzai went to America to offer his cooperation against the resurgent Taliban. Now in jail, he can no longer supply intelligence, move his tribe away from the Taliban, persuade his followers to give up poppy farming or sway other warlords toward the political path. But worst of all, his 1 million tribespeople will now be convinced of U.S. perfidy, duplicity and treachery and therefore be converted into implacable enemies...
...Noorzai case is a perfect example of this Administration's botched war on terrorism and the Drug Enforcement Administration's handling of the incredibly stupid war on drugs. Haji Bashar Noorzai could have been a real asset in rooting out the Taliban. Intelligence on the ground is a most valuable resource. Has Noorzai's arrest really made a difference in heroin production? U.S. taxpayers are now going to have to spend millions to prosecute and detain him. The U.S. could wipe out the drug trade tomorrow through legalization and taxation, which would take away the enormous profits earned in illicit...
...influence in the region. Sunni politicians stoke these anxieties in the hope that Arab pressure on the Iraqi government will force it to give Sunnis a greater share of power. "If the Arab states don't come to our help, they will find [Iran] at their gate," says Mohammed Bashar al-Faidi, a spokesman for the Association of Muslim Scholars. "For the sake of the entire Muslim community worldwide, the beast has to be destroyed in Iraq." For leaders of terrorist groups, the fear of a regionwide Shi'ite ascendancy serves as a useful fund-raising tool as well...