We again have the Defense Department at odds with the very people we are supposed to be aiding...  shades of Viet Nam or, ala Yogi Berra, it's deja vu all over again.
   The recent reports of the "enemy" convoy taken out on a little used road to Kabul by our forces apparently was a case of "friendly fire" if our erstwhile allies, the Northern Alliance are to be believed.
   The convoy was on its way to the inaguration ceremony in Kabul and took the out of the way route for fear of attack by Taliban/Al Quiada forces.  Too bad...  they should have feared attack by our forces...  they didn't... we did... some 65 people, supporters of the new regime and opponents of the Taliban have gone to their final reward.
   Our story?  The convoy was made up of Taliban/Al Qaida forces en route to Kabul to cause murder and mayhem...  and we are sticking to it.  After all, what do the ignorant, goat herding towel heads, they who were actually on the ground know about it when they claim otherwise?
   Brings to mind the several villages in Tora Bora that were not destroyed by our bombs, again according to the Pentagon while reports from observers on the ground (what do they know...  who cares what they say) speak of the opposite.
   How soon before we hear, "We had to destroy the villages in order to save them?"  WIll it be 40 years as in the case of the recent tapes uncovered that proved once and for all the myth of the Gulf of Tonkin attacks which escalated dramatically our efort in Vietnam, or will we listen to the evidence after clearing our heads of the jingoistic claptrap that the administration is trying to pass off as patriotism.
   Every American wants those who perpetrated the dastardly deeds of 09-11-01 brought to justice...  but not at the expense of innocent people who had nothing to do with the attack...  to let such carnage be justified by the "innocent lives were taken in the attacks of 09-11-01" argument is to bring us down to the level of those we are trying to bring to justice, for the innocent lives that have been taken in our name in Afghanistan did not have anything... nothing... nada... not one iota to do with 09-11-01, much as the innocent lives that were taken on 09-11-01 had nothing to do with the percieved transgressions of the west against Islam.
   If it was wrong for the attacks of 09-11-01 to take innocent lives, as it most surely was, than it is equally wrong to take innocent lives in retaliation.
   One would think that the lessons learned in Vietnam would have been applied to this latest "War" on terrorism...  apparently not for the mindset that created such a crises in our nation some 40 years ago seems to be in ascendency once again today.
   Extremism in defense of liberty is not only a vice people, extremism in defense of anything is a vice.  Extremism is the last refuge of a position devoid of truth and logic and we need to beware of our very own "Taliban" or we shall soon have no freedoms worth having.