Afghans call in US airlift for colicky Labrador as Taliban mortar rounds land

Afghan villagers, surrounded and under heavy fire from Taliban extremists, were delighted to hear the steady thrumb of a US Apache helicopter growing ever louder. The noise meant their desperate calls for help had been heard; that someone out there cared, and a heroic rescue mission was in place. The village chief hurried to the cellar of the one stone building, the safest place now that mortar shells were detonating and blasting shrapnel through huddles of women and children.

He dragged the sandbags aside to enter the dark cellar, calling to those gathered within to prepare Snoop for evacuation. Snoop heard his voice, his understanding of the situation evident as he beat the floor with his tail, ears pricked with joy. It had been a tough few days for Snoop; whatever he'd scavenged from the bins behind the school clearly hadn't agreed with him in a big way - first the retching, then the vomiting, and for the last two days some really evil smelling diarrhoea had left him feeling right off his usual dog biscuits and seriously reluctant to go on anything like his normal walks.

Obviously the whole village were desperately anxious as his motions stubbornly refused to normalise, and he even turned his nose up at some dilute Bovril. Tummy upsets like this became much harder to shake off once Labradors reached advanced years, like the 15-year-old Snoop.

Sturdy, brave tribesmen gathered, resolute and determined, to raise Snoop's dog crate on a stretcher and race through the falling heavy ordnance to the dusty clearing where the US chopper was screaming in to land. Barely had the landing skids touched the floor they sprinted out with Snoop and bundled his crate aboard into its hold (where, of course, people cannot go). Mere seconds after landing, it lifted off again, the rescue complete; the Afghan villagers all followed its path towards the horizon with tear stained eyes - though they knew that their chances of survival at the hands of the brutal Taliban warlords were negligible, at least Snoop would be in safe hands and that, of course, was the main thing.

Image: kingmaphotos/Pixabay

Where were all these ‘experts’ on Afghanistan twenty years ago?

Sociologists have noticed an odd phenomenon, where suddenly there is an influx of people who have never able to spell Afghanistan, but are suddenly ‘experts’ on military tactics, Pashto dialect and the nuances of dealing with at least eight discrete ethnic groups. In fact the combined wisdom of these commentators is deeply impressive, given that only last week they all mistook Disneyland Paris for Kabul.

Said one such genius: ‘Yes, I originally supported the CIA channelling $2 billion worth of arms to support terrorists in the region and to train Osama Bin Laden. But it would take fevered imagination to see some kind of connection between the Mujahideen and the Taliban. For instance, they are spelt completely differently.

‘I can’t see how there is a link between us illegally invading Afghanistan, looting its wealth, installing a puppet regime and the troubles we have today? We’ve rejuvenated the Afghan economy – you only have to look at the way we’ve helped them become an exporter of 90% of all the world’s illicit opium. That’s civilization for you’.

The only ‘expert’ no one seems to have heard from, despite his ability to sound off on every conceivable topic, is Tony Blair. Odd that.

West needs to rethink policy on Islamic extremism, say tanked thinkers

As the Taliban swarm into Kabul, a spokesman for a major US thinktank is calling for a change of strategy on extremism. Hank Burgerbun, lead strategist at WEIISS, The Well Endowed Institute for International Strategic Studies in the USA, says there needs to be "a good 'ol head scratch" about these developments.

He declared "In the end this is a matter for the Afghans". He went on to say, "But somehow the moderate majority need to prevail. What the West needs to do is mobilise the large majority of moderate Muslims, who are reasonable and peaceful people, to resist the degradation of human rights and the brutal legal system. This is a tactic we have used before with great success, for example, during the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in the 1980s, and this lead to the eventual withdrawal of Soviet troops in 1989. In that case we supported the build up of a local group of Muslims who were prepared to fight against tyranny, who came to be known as the .. erm ... Taliban. Erm..." He declined to comment further.