Starving Afghanis Flock to Bombing Targets for Free Food

"This is much better than the Russkies ever did" commented Mohammed Abdul, who has lived to see his country pummelled militarily by the 2 greatest superpowers the world has known. "Those damn Russkies were merciless. They would machine gun our bands from their helicopters, and not have the decency to drop some food and band-aids afterwards. Not even some vodka." Mr. Abdul subsequently requested that the last sentence be kept off the record.

In the meantime, the U.S. was touting its newest advance in military tactics and strategy, the friendly strike. "At the same time, the oppressed people of Afghanistan will know the generosity of America and our allies. As we strike military targets, we will also drop food, medicine and supplies to the starving and suffering men and women and children of Afghanistan," said President Bush in an address to the U.S. nation. "The United States of America is a friend to the Afghan people."

This was wonderfully received througout Afghanistan today. "We are very thankful of President Bush. What we need the most right now are friends to commiserate over the death and destruction friendly raining from above," commented Mr. Abdul Mohammed of Kabul. "And food. Do you know if the north side is going to be bombed soon? We're hungry; my children have not eaten in 2 days." He excused himself, citing that he had to leave for the closest military target still standing as soon as possible.

As a testament to the resourcefulness and the invincibility of the human spirit, some Afghani have shown great creativity in face of the unprecedented opportunities that the friendly strike offers. Such is the case of Mohammed Mohammed bin Mohammed, who we caught on the process of painting a red and white bullseye on top of his hut. "This way the friendly american pilots can know where to drop their bombs, so we can get food without going to the places where the real targets are. There's too much people there, anyway. We'll sleep in the cave at the other end of the field. You know, as The Prophet said, `If Mohammed can't go to the mountain, let the mountain come to Mohammed.' Same idea, but with B-52 bombers."

His final words for the Americans: "Destroy, yes, destroy all we have. But drop us some food."

	drop bombs and food (none / 0) (#1)
	by Anonymous Reader on Sun Oct 7th, 2001 at 04:16:48 PM PST

	This is utter stupidity. They are not dropping food in the same places they are dropping bombs. "Would you like a bomb with your food" This is not an old tactic either. When at war countries that provided food would drop it on high populated areas but bomb other parts such as road ways that would cut off supply lines to military targets.

	It's not just food... (none / 0) (#9)
	by Anonymous Reader on Tue Oct 9th, 2001 at 07:45:57 PM PST

	There are medical supplies included, so they can help their injured. I would argue that dropping food close and medical to bombed sites would make PERFECT sense from both humanitarian and image standpoint.

	In WWII... (5.00 / 1) (#3)
	by claudius on Mon Oct 8th, 2001 at 08:15:31 AM PST

	In WWII the Japanese also dropped food on the Chinese during their benevolent liberation of Manchuria. Sadly, the generosity of the Japanese has been often been overlooked or misrepresented in the historical annuls as the food in question was in the form of plague-invested fleas, which, while high in protein, are arguably not an especially good source of carbohydrates or vitamins.

	Hrm... (none / 0) (#7)
	by Frithiof on Tue Oct 9th, 2001 at 02:08:41 PM PST

	where can I find out more about this? wow... plague-infested fleas... :) -Frith

	Japanese pioneers in biological weapons. (none / 0) (#8)
	by claudius on Tue Oct 9th, 2001 at 06:17:49 PM PST

	Any good book on biological weapons should discuss this. The Japanese essentially pioneered the modern use of biological agents during WWII. The Soviet program was born when they captured a series of Japanese biological weapons factories and data about the successful deployment of biological weapons during the conflict. (Until then most had considered biological weapons impractical as a tool of war). A summary of the Japanese effort with references can be found at the Federation of American Scientists site, among others. I myself first learned of this from watching a Cultural Revolution era Chinese film--I'll try to remember the name of the film. (The film wasn't subtitled or voice-overed, though, so you'll probably have to be fluent in Mandarin to follow what is going on. My meager language skills were barely adequate).

	usually this site (none / 0) (#4)
	by Anonymous Reader on Mon Oct 8th, 2001 at 12:27:39 PM PST

	is pretty funny, but this has to be the weakest satire I've seen here. It doesn't even make 'sense' as far as pieces of satire usually do make sense... For the record 'Afghani' refers to arabs who joined the mujuhadeen against the Soviets. I think it might even have pejorative connotations as many in Afghanistan find them intrusive. A resident or citizen of Afghanistan is called an 'Afghan.'

	tread carefully (none / 0) (#5)
	by piffpaff on Mon Oct 8th, 2001 at 02:09:37 PM PST

	in a country littered with landmines, the policy of scattering food parcels far and wide has to be questioned...

	2% (1.00 / 1) (#6)
	by Anonymous Reader on Tue Oct 9th, 2001 at 04:55:32 AM PST

	They dropped 37000 meals. There are about 7 million people starving in Afghanistan. So, if every meal reached a hungry person, this would be enough to provide 2% of the necessary food for 1 day. Why bother ? Well, obviously it's to keep public opinion on our side. Not the opinion of people in the region, who are unlikely to be greatly impressed by the gesture, but the opinion of the civilian population of western world. Furthermore, it's working.

	But seriously... (none / 0) (#10)
	by Nyarly on Mon Oct 15th, 2001 at 01:43:41 PM PST

	If you wanted to regress to old-style military barbarism (which can be oh, so successful if your opponent cares for his people), wouldn't humanitarian aid create bombing targets? Seriously, there was much issue raised about how sparse targets were in Afganistan. Sure, there's a couple of airstrips and a cave here and there, but ultimately, that's really only about two weeks worth of real bomber work. Then you've got nothing military left, and only very poor civilian targets (a comment by M. Bush about a million dollar missle and a ten dollar camel comes to mind). The Onion has been running a story about asking the bin Laden to form a country we can invade. We managed that much by saying to the Taliban that we'd consider Afganistan his if he wasn't turned over to us. But what about forming targets we can bomb? And a food distribution site would be perfect. Airdrop a big package with lots of food in it, and wait. Drop another, right next to it. Radio coordinates, until people gather. Then drop a bomb next to the food.