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Saturday, September 13, 2008

[chottala.com] An anatomy of collateral damage in the Bush era

An anatomy of collateral damage in the Bush era
13/09/2008 11:59:00 PM GMT              
(Reuters) An Afghan girl who lost family members holds a poster with photos of men killed in the Azizabad attack

In the Middle East, in Somalia, in Pakistan, in Afghanistan, the war to be fought would, in crucial ways, be aimed at civilians (though this could never be admitted).

By Tom Engelhardt

  • The value of one, the value of none

In a little noted passage in her bestselling book, The Dark Side, Jane Mayer offers us a vision, just post-9/11, of the value of one.

In October 2001, shaken by a nerve-gas false alarm at the White House, Vice President Dick Cheney, reports Mayer, went underground. He literally embunkered himself in "a secure, undisclosed location," which she describes as "one of several Cold War-era nuclear-hardened subterranean bunkers built during the Truman and Eisenhower administrations, the nearest of which were located hundreds of feet below bedrock…"

That bunker would be dubbed, perhaps only half-sardonically, "the Commander in Chief's Suite."

Oh, and in that period, if Cheney had to be in transit, "he was chauffeured in an armored motorcade that varied its route to foil possible attackers." In the backseat of his car (just in case), adds Mayer, "rested a duffel bag stocked with a gas mask and a biochemical survival suit." And lest danger rear its head, "rarely did he travel without a medical doctor in tow."

When it came to leadership in troubled times, this wasn't exactly a profile in courage. Perhaps it was closer to a profile in paranoia, or simply in fear, but whatever else it might have been, it was also a strange kind of statement of self-worth.

Has any wartime president -- forget the vice-president -- including Abraham Lincoln when southern armies might have marched on Washington, or Franklin D. Roosevelt at the height of World War II, ever been so bizarrely overprotected in the nation's capital? Has any administration ever placed such value on the preservation of the life of a single official?

On the other hand, the well-armored Vice President and his aide David Addington played a leading role, as Mayer documents in grim detail, in loosing a Global War on Terror that was also a global war of terror on lands thousands of miles distant.

In this new war, "the gloves came off," "the shackles were removed" -- images much loved within the administration and, in the case of those "shackles," by George Tenet's CIA. In the process, no price in human abasement or human life proved too high to pay -- as long as it was paid by someone else.

Recently, it was paid by up to 60 Afghan children.

  • The value of none

If no level of protection was too much for this White House, then no protection was what it offered civilians who happened to be living in the ever expanding "war zones" of the planet.

In the Middle East, in Somalia, in Pakistan, in Afghanistan, the war to be fought -- in part from the air, sometimes via pilotless unmanned aerial vehicles or drones -- would, in crucial ways, be aimed at civilians (though this could never be admitted).

"Collateral damage," the sterile, self-exculpating phrase the Pentagon chose to use for the anything-but-secondary death and destruction visited on civilians, would be the name of the game in the President's chosen war almost from the moment the Vice President disappeared into his bunker.

In a world where death came suddenly in that vast swath of the planet the neoconservatives once called "the arc of instability" (before they made it one), civilians had few doctors on hand, no less full chemical body suits or gas masks, when disaster struck. Often they were asleep, or going about their daily business, when death made its appearance unannounced.

Throughout these years, the stories of these deaths, when they appeared at all, normally were to be found on the inside pages of our newspapers in summary war reports. Regularly, they had "women and children" buried somewhere in them.

We have no idea just how many civilians have been blown away by the US military (and allies) in these years, only that the "collateral damage" has been widespread and far more central to the President's War on Terror than anyone here generally cares to acknowledge.

Collateral damage has come in myriad ways -- from artillery fire in the initial invasion of Iraq; from repeated shootings of civilians in vehicles at checkpoints, and from troops (or even private mercenaries) blasting away from convoys; during raids on private homes; in village operations; and, significantly, from the air.

UIn Afghanistan, in particular, as the Taliban insurgency grew more quickly than US and NATO troop strength, so did the use of air power. From 2004 to 2007, air strikes increased tenfold. Over the past year, civilian deaths from those air strikes have nearly tripled. According to Marc Garlasco, a former Pentagon official and military analyst at Human Rights Watch, 317,000 pounds of bombs were dropped this June and 270,000 this July, equaling "the total tonnage dropped in 2006."

As with all figures relating to casualties, the actual counts you get on Afghan civilian dead are approximations and probably undercounts, especially since the war against the Taliban has been taking place largely in the backlands of one (or, if you count Pakistan, two) of the poorest, most remote regions on the planet.

And yet we do know something. For instance, although the media have seldom attended to the subject, we know that one subset of innocent civilians has been slaughtered repeatedly.

While, for instance, Americans spent days in October 2006 riveted to TV screens following the murders of five Amish girls by a madman in a one-room schoolhouse in Pennsylvania, and weeks following the mass slaughter of 32 college students by a mad boy at Virginia Tech in April 2007, between 2001 and this year, three Afghan and one Iraqi wedding parties were largely wiped out from the air by American planes, the latest only months ago, to hardly any news coverage at all.

The message of these slaughters -- an estimated 47 people, mostly from "the bride's party," including the bride herself, died in the latest such "incident" -- is that if you live in areas where the Taliban exists, which is now much of the country, you'd better not gather.

Each of these events was marked by something else -- the uniformity of the U.S. response: initial claims that U.S. forces had been fired on first and that those killed were the enemy; a dismissal of the slaughters as the unavoidable "collateral damage" of wartime; and, above all, an unwillingness to genuinely apologize for, or take real responsibility for, having wiped out groups of celebrating locals.

And keep in mind that such disasters are just subsets of a far larger, barely covered story. In July alone, for example, the U.S. military and NATO officials launched investigations into three air strikes in Afghanistan in which 78 Afghan civilians (including that wedding party) were killed.

Since the Afghan War began in 2001, such "incidents" have occurred again and again. Not surprisingly, the Bush administration, in combination with the Pentagon, has devised a method for dealing with such happenings. After all, the Global War on Terror is premised on an unspoken belief that the lives of others -- civilians going about their business in distant lands -- are essentially of no importance when placed against American needs and desires. That, you might say, is the value of none.

  • Incident in Azizabad

Another gathering of Afghans recently ended with the slaughter of civilians on a startling scale. For once, it's gotten far more than minimal coverage and hasn't (yet) gone away. Remaining in the news, it has also opened a window into just how the U.S. military and the Bush administration have dealt with most incidents of "collateral damage" that made it into the news over these last years.

Here are the basic facts as best we know them. On the night of August 21st, a memorial service was held in Azizabad, a village in the Shindand District of Afghanistan's Herat Province, for a tribal leader killed the previous year, who had been, villagers reported, anti-Taliban. Hundreds had attended, including "extended families from two tribes."

That night, a combined party of U.S. Special Forces and Afghan army troops attacked the village. They claimed they were "ambushed" and came under "intense fire." What we know is that they called in repeated air strikes.

According to several investigations and the on-the-spot reporting of New York Times journalist Carlotta Gall, at least 90 civilians, including perhaps 15 women and up to 60 children, died that night. As many as 76 members of a single extended family were killed, along with its head, Reza Khan. His compound seems to have been specially targeted.

Khan, it turns out, was no Taliban "militant," but a "wealthy businessman with construction and security contracts with the nearby American base at Shindand airport." He reportedly had a private security company that worked for the U.S. military at the airport and also owned a cell phone business in the town of Herat. He had a card "issued by an American Special Forces officer that designated [him] as a 'coordinator for the USS.F.'"

Eight of the other men killed that night, according to Gall, worked as guards for a private American security firm. At least two dead men had served in the Afghan police and fought against the Taliban.

The incident in Azizabad may represent the single deadliest media-verified attack on civilians by U.S. forces since the invasion of 2001. Numerous buildings were damaged. Many bodies, including those of children, had to be dug out of the rubble. There may have been as many as 60 children among the dead.

The U.S. military evidently attacked after being given false information by another tribal leader/businessman in the area with a grudge against Khan and his brother. As one tribal elder, who helped bury the dead, put it: "It is quite obvious, the Americans bombed the area due to wrong information. I am 100 percent confident that someone gave the information due to a tribal dispute. The Americans are foreigners and they do not understand. These people they killed were enemies of the Taliban."

Repeated U.S. air attacks resulting in civilian deaths have proven a disaster for Afghan President Hamid Karzai. He promptly denounced the strikes against Azizabad, fired two Afghan commanders, including the top ranking officer in western Afghanistan, for "negligence and concealing facts," and ordered his own investigation of the incident. His team of investigators concluded that more than 90 Afghan civilians had indeed died.

Along with the Afghan Council of Ministers, Karzai also demanded a "review" of "the presence of international forces and agreements with foreign allies, including NATO and the United States."

Ahmad Nader Nadery, commissioner of the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission, similarly reported that one of the group's researchers had "found that 88 people had been killed, including 20 women."

The UN mission in Afghanistan then dispatched its own investigative team from Herat to interview survivors. Its investigation "found convincing evidence, based on the testimony of eyewitnesses, and others, that some 90 civilians were killed, including 60 children, 15 women and 15 men." (The 60 children were reportedly "3 months old to 16 years old, all killed as they slept.")

  • The American response

Given the weight of evidence at Azizabad, the on-site investigations, the many graves, the destroyed houses, the specificity of survivor accounts, and so on, this might have seemed like a cut-and-dried case of mistaken intelligence followed by an errant assault with disastrous consequences. But accepting such a conclusion simply isn't in the playbook of the U.S. military or the Bush administration.

Instead, in such cases what you regularly get is a predictable U.S. narrative about what happened made up of outlandish claims (or simply bald-faced lies), followed by a strategy of stonewalling, including a blame-the-victims approach in which civilian deaths are regularly dismissed as enemy-inspired "propaganda," followed -- if the pressure doesn't ease up -- by the announcement of an "investigation" (whose results will rarely be released), followed by an expression of "regrets" or "sorrow" for the loss of life -- both weasel words that can be uttered without taking actual responsibility for what happened -- never to be followed by a genuine apology.

Now, let's consider the American response to Azizabad.

  • The numbers

Initially, the U.S. military flatly denied that any civilians had been killed in the village. In the operation, they claimed, exactly 30 Taliban "militants" had died. ("Insurgents engaged the soldiers from multiple points within the compound using small-arms and RPG [rocket-propelled grenade] fire. The joint forces responded with small-arms fire and an air strike killing 30 militants.")

Targeted, they said, had been a single compound holding a local Taliban commander, later identified as Mullah Sadiq, who was killed. (Sadiq would subsequently call Radio Liberty to indicate that he was still very much alive and deny that he had been in the village that night.)

Quickly enough, however, military spokespeople began backing off. Brig. Gen. Richard Blanchette, a NATO spokesman, said that "investigators sent to the site immediately after the bombing" had, in fact, verified the deaths of three women and two children, who were suspected of being relatives of the dead Taliban commander.

After President Karzai's angry denunciation, and the results of his team's investigation was released, the U.S. military altered its account slightly, admitting that only 25 Taliban fighters had actually died as well as five Afghans identified as "noncombatants," including a woman and two children. The U.S. command, however, remained "very confident" that only 30 Afghans had been killed.

Later, after a military investigation had been launched, the U.S. command in Afghanistan issued a vague statement indicating that "[c]oalition forces are aware of allegations that the engagement in the Shindand district of Herat Province, Friday, may have resulted in civilian casualties apart from those already reported."

On August 28th, the U.S. military "investigation" released its results, confirming that only 30 Afghans had died.

On August 29th, however, Gen. David D. McKiernan, American commander of NATO forces, raised the number, suggesting that "up to 40" Afghans might have died, though still insisting that only five of them had been civilians, the rest being "men of military age."

These revised numbers were still being touted on September 2nd when, according to the Washington Post, "U.S. military officials flatly rejected" the Afghan and UN figures.

On September 4th, the Los Angeles Times reported that the U.S. military was now "acknowledging" 35 militants and seven civilians -- 42 Afghans -- had died in the attack.

This is where the American numbers remain today. Think of all this as a strange (and callous) kind of informal negotiation process under pressure. Over a span of two weeks, the Americans slowly gave way on those previously definitive figures, moving modestly closer to the ones offered by the Karzai and UN teams, without ever giving way on their version of what had happened.

  • The investigations

The first investigation, according to U.S. military spokespeople, occurred the morning after the attack when investigators from the attacking force supposedly went house to house "assessing damage and casualties" and "taking photos." Combat photographers were said to have "documented the scene."

According to New York Times reporter Gall, the U.S. military claimed its forces had made a "thorough sweep of this small western hamlet, a building-by-building search a few hours after the air strikes, and a return visit on Aug. 26, which villagers insist never occurred."

As claims of civilian deaths mounted and Karzai denounced the attacks, Maj. Gen. Jeffrey J. Schloesser, the commander of coalition forces in Afghanistan, ordered an "investigation" into the episode. ("All allegations of civilian casualties are taken very seriously. Coalition forces make every effort to prevent the injury or loss of innocent lives. An investigation has been directed.")

On August 29th, the conclusions of the investigation, completed in near record time, were released. The casualty count -- only 30 Afghans, 25 of them Taliban militants -- had been definitively confirmed. A future "joint investigation" with the Afghan government was, however, proposed. On the 29th, General McKiernan suggested that the UN, too, should be part of the joint investigation.

On September 3rd, the Afghans accepted the U.S. proposal for what was now a "tripartite investigation."

On September 7th, "emerging evidence" -- a grainy video taken on a cell phone by a doctor in Azizabad, "showing dozens of civilian bodies, including those of numerous children, prepared for burial" -- led Gen. McKiernan to ask that the U.S. investigation be reopened. The U.S. Central Command is now preparing to "send a senior team, headed by a general and including a legal affairs officer, to reinvestigate."

Normally, such investigations, whose results usually remain classified, are no more than sops, meant to quiet matters until attention dies away. In this case, the minimalist military investigation, which merely backed up the initial cover-up about the assault on Azizabad, was forced into the open and, as protest in Aghanistan widened, has now essentially been consigned to the trash heap of history.

  • The words

Initially, according to the Washington Post, "a U.S. military spokeswoman dismissed as 'outrageous' the Afghan government's assertions that scores of civilians had been killed in the attack… A U.S. official in Washington, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said the Taliban has become adept at spreading false intelligence to draw U.S. strikes on civilians." In not-for-attribution comments, U.S. military officials would later suggest "that the villagers fabricated such evidence as grave sites."

Lt. Col. Rumi Nielson-Green, a spokeswoman for the U.S. military, insisted: "We're confident that we struck the right compound."

On August 24th, as protests over the deaths at Azizabad mounted in Afghanistan, White House Spokesman Tony Fratto said at a press gaggle: "We regret the loss of life among the innocent Afghanis who we are committed to protect… Coalition forces take precautions to prevent the loss of civilians, unlike the Taliban and militants who target civilians and place civilians in harm's way."

On August 25th, Fratto added: "We believe from what we've heard from officials at the Department of Defense that they believe it was a good strike… I should tell you, though, first of all, we obviously mourn the loss of any innocent civilians that may lose their lives in these attacks in -- whether they're in Afghanistan or in Iraq, in any of these conflict areas."

On that same day, Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said: "We continue at this point to believe that this was a legitimate strike against the Taliban. Unfortunately there were some civilian casualties, although that figure is in dispute, I would say. But this is why it is being investigated."

On August 27th at a Pentagon press conference, Commandant of the Marine Corps Gen. James Conway said: "If the reports of the Afghan civilian casualties are accurate -- and sometimes that is a big 'if' because I think we all understand the Taliban capabilities with regard to information operations -- but if that proves out, that will be truly an unfortunate incident. And we need to avoid that, certainly, at every cost…

"You know, air power is the premiere asymmetric advantage that we hold over both the Taliban and, for that matter, the al Qaeda in Iraq… And when we find that you're up against hardened people in a hardened type of compound, before we throw our Marines or soldiers against that, we're going to take advantage of our asymmetric advantage… You don't always know what's in that compound, unfortunately. And sometimes we think there's been overt efforts on the part of the Taliban, in particular, to surround themselves with civilians so as to, at a minimum, reap an IO [information operations] advantage if civilians are killed."

On August 29th, Gen. McKiernan reiterated the American position, while expressing regrets for any loss of civilian life: "This was a legitimate insurgent target. We regret the loss of civilian life, but the numbers that we find on this target area are nowhere near the number reported in the media, and that we believe there was a very deliberate information operation orchestrated by the insurgency, by the Taliban."

He also complained about the UN investigation, saying: "I am very disappointed in the United Nations because they have not talked to this headquarters before they made that release" and he suggested that President Karzai had been the victim of bad information.

On September 3rd, with pressure growing, U.S. ambassador to the UN Zalmay Khalilzad put the disparities in numbers down to the "fog of war," while urging a new joint investigation: "I believe that there is a bit of a fog of war involved in some of these initial reports. Sometimes initial reports can be wrong. And the best way to deal with it is to have the kind of investigation that we have proposed, which is U.S. , coalition, plus the Afghan government, plus the United Nations."

On the same day, Karzai's office issued a statement indicating that President Bush had phoned the Afghan president: "The President of America has expressed his regret and sympathy for the occurrence of Shindand incident." They quoted him as saying, "I am a partner in your loss and that of the Afghan people."

On September 3rd, General McKiernan said: "Every death of a civilian in wartime is a terrible tragedy. Even one death is too many… I wish to again express my sincere condolences and apologies to the families whose loved ones were inadvertently killed in the cross fire with the insurgents in Azizabad." Though the Afghans seem to have largely died due to U.S. air strikes, not in a crossfire, this was as close to an apology as anyone related to the U.S. government or military has come.

On September 7th, as he was reopening the military investigation, Gen. McKiernan said: "The people of Afghanistan have our commitment to get to the truth."

  • Playing with fire

Let me mention a small irony of history. The U.S. military claimed that its now discredited findings at Azizabad "were corroborated by an independent journalist embedded with the U.S. force." That man turned out to be none other than Oliver North, working for FOX News.

North had not only gained notoriety as an official of, a defender of, and a shredder of papers for the Reagan administration in the Iran-Contra scandal, but had earlier fought in Vietnam. He actually appeared as a witness for the defense in the case of one of the Marines accused of carrying out a massacre of Vietnamese at Son Thang in February 1970.

As now, so in Vietnam, were "hearts and minds" being hunted both from the air and on the ground; so, too, civilians were repeatedly blown away there; and so, too, as in the case of the infamous My Lai massacre, cover stories were fabricated to explain how civilians -- Vietnamese peasants -- had died and those stories were publicized by the U.S. military, even though they bore little or no relation to what had actually happened.

Today, "hearts and minds" are being similarly hunted across large stretches of the planet, and people in surprising numbers continue to die while simply trying to lead their lives.

This summer was, in fact, dotted with "incidents" that often barely reached the news, in which civilians died in Iraq, Afghanistan, and the tribal areas of Pakistan: At a checkpoint in Iraq's Diyala Province, American soldiers killed Dr. Abdul-Salam al-Shimari, the chief internist at the Baaquba Public Hospital, while he was driving to work as other American soldiers in a convoy had gunned down the manager and two female employees of a bank branch at Baghdad International Airport on the Airport road. (The unarmed, dead Iraqis would then be declared armed "criminals" before protests forced the U.S. military to withdraw the charge.)

Similarly, an Afghan woman and two children were killed recently at a German checkpoint in Kunduz Province, as were two Afghan civilians by an errant NATO bomb.

In the tribal areas of Pakistan, a U.S. assault by helicopter on a village killed 20 civilians, according to the outraged provincial governor; and Pakistanis, mainly the relatives of a man identified as a Taliban commander, including one of his several wives, "his sister-in-law, a sister, two nieces, eight grandchildren and a male relative," were killed by missiles from a U.S. Predator drone.

This sort of "collateral damage" is an ongoing modern nightmare, which, unlike dead Amish girls or school shootings, does not fascinate either our media or, evidently, Americans generally. It seems we largely don't want to know about what happened, and generally speaking, that's lucky because the media isn't particularly interested in telling us.

This is one reason the often absurd accounts sometimes offered by the U.S. military go relatively unchallenged -- as, fortunately, they did not in the case of the incident at Azizabad. Nonetheless, the Bush administration has been more than willing to accept "collateral damage" as an everyday matter in pursuing its Global War on Terror.

Of course, it matters what you value and what you dismiss as valueless. When you overvalue yourself and undervalue others, you naturally overestimate your own power and are remarkably blind to the potential power of others -- you underestimate them, that is. This might be said to be a reasonable summary of the short, bitter history of the Bush era.

In this way, not just Vice President Cheney but the President and his top officials have remained self-protectively embunkered throughout their years in office. The 60 or so children slaughtered in Azizabad, each of whom belonged to some family, don't matter to them. But they do matter. And when you kill them, and so many others like them, you surely play with fire.

-- Tom Engelhardt, co-founder of the American Empire Project, runs the Nation Institute's TomDispatch.com. He is the author of The End of Victory Culture, a history of the American Age of Denial. The World According to Tomdispatch: America in the New Age of Empire (Verso, 2008), a collection of some of the best pieces from his site, has just been published. Focusing on what the mainstream media didn't cover, it is functionally an alternative history of the mad Bush years.

Copyright 2008 Tom Engelhardt

TomDispatch

 

Comments    [ Send your comment ]
Noor from Pakistan 12/09/2008 10:07:25 PM 
IP
The Truth
A well written description of what people have to go through these big powers but its sad that we do not have the power to stand up for what is right and what is wrong. May we find the courage to stand and strike those who strike us
BUSH IS ZIONISM NOT AMERICAN from USA 13/09/2008 06:39:16 PM 
IP
Bush belongs to jail. Bush and his administration must pay. The eye of history will not sleep and is recording everything. Bush and his admin helpers will have to be sued into courts.
Bush and his admin helpers will have to pay or they (or their family members) will be targeted with pistol shots in the same way as John Kennedy. He can not simply promise democracy and prosperity in a country (Iraq) then take all that money from American Tax Payers, then devastate Iraq and almost ten million people are living now either in pain, sadness or poverty. He demolished a nation, and increased the pain in the middle east misery. Bush must pay. But again, that means the american tax payer must pay. To avoid such as situation, I suggest to kidnap or assassinate Bush or one of his family members; in other words: inject personal pain to him as he did with ten other million people.
Kill Bush and Zionism People from USA 13/09/2008 06:44:02 PM 
IP
We are preparing a second holocaust in the USA for people such as George Bush and Zionism Jar- wish Lobby who are not supporting American jar- wish people but working to spend money into usurping state of israel.
We are preparing a second holocaust in the USA for people such as George Bush and Zionism Jar- wish Lobby who are not supporting American jar- wish people but working to spend money into usurping state of israel. We need American Politicians working for America and not American Politicians who are applying Zionism Agendas and plans to protect israel. Down with the usurping state of israel if this will harm USA.
Ziopedia Org from Lebanon 13/09/2008 06:49:41 PM 
IP
Please visit our internet page as mentioned in the name Please visit our internet page as mentioned in the name.
All what you need is to know more about Zionism. Iraq disaster was a Zionism plan executed by American people. Americans are misused to implement Zionism plans. I say to American people: wake up and check out your leaders (politicians, priests, business leaders etc...) whether are they American loyal or Zionism working to protect israel. A zionism fellow will take the money from US American Tax payers and spend it in wars in the middle east to protect israel or fight anyone who is against israel there, even if the money is terribly needed at home in the USA or not. A Zionism politician will spend in wars for israel but not in education, health care, disaster management, aging infrastructure and so on in the USA. Down with usurping israel. USA has friends in the middle east and can have more: USA can become a friend of Iran, Lebanon, Syria, and all other nations there, if it stops supporting the usurping unjust Zionism state of israel. Like Saudi Arabia, all other states can be friends.
To warmongers, crusaders liars from Canada 13/09/2008 07:04:12 PM 
IP
Oh GoOd, save this world from buster die jason.
Thieving, murdering, lying, crusading and mamma drilling warmongers, evangelist cretins, Choose and Choose lovers, vomiting vermin everyday with propaganda, lies and deceptions. Rotten, subhuman, shay am less, really shay am less but not that much shay am less because still these any malls put their clothes on them, motivated by shay am less liar politicians and imperialist warmongers, uneducated backward, born in the street corners in the foul wombs of their hook are mammas drilled by several guys on the same night, always whining, ranting, lying and deceiving the world. These low blow pork dung sub human are the real problems for this world, no morality and no values just sensuality, bigotry, gang and drug trafficking and killing others on their street corners and on foreign lands. Now these sub human got a hook are pale in, going to buster dies the whole US, the churches will be brothels, priests will be child molesting more and mammas will be shaking the pie inns of their kids.
JALID from Venezuela 13/09/2008 07:25:49 PM 
IP
THE LITTLE GIRL CRYING
MAKES ME FEEL VERY SAD. i hope the daughters of george bush CRY EVEN LOUDER! AMEN!
JALID from Venezuela 13/09/2008 07:28:41 PM 
IP
AMERICANS DESERVE A TRILLION
SEPTEMBER ELEVENS. AMEN! DO IT NOW!
Henry from USA 13/09/2008 07:32:49 PM 
IP
Reality
Bush is warmonger and uses democracy as means to kill. Sarah Mc Cain are warmonger with killer mentality but use re legion as a mean to kill. S he said Iraq war is a *ho lee* war. Which re legion person promotes her young child for six? Are we legitimising a killer as long that person says I am a re legion person? Majority of Americans have become so *stoop id* that they buy anything. French intelligent service said that most people are converting to *Is lee am* than ever. Kris and CHOOSE chose to kill them to stop the growth. Together they killed near one million in Iraq and Iran back in nineteen eighty. They killed near one million in Iraq since two thousand three. We do not know how many they killed in Afghanistan and Pakistan. They caused several hundred thousand to die in Sudan. Now Israel and its helpers plan to kill near five million in Iran. Iran should pre strike Israel with nuclear before Israel takes any action.
Woodstock Coloured Rhetoric from USA 13/09/2008 07:42:07 PM 
IP
Ever notice how the peace fraud brigade NEVER has an answers, only their same old stale peace fraud lying rhetoric, where the only mindless solution they ever put forth, is, Its The Colours Man, Its All About The Colours, Dude, and NOTHING ELSE ? ? ?
Dont you just love it how the peace this and peace that, peace fraud brigade, flagrantly buries their sharpened war ax, of their very own personalised chosen wars they viciously fight and of their obvious violent, lying, fraud, nefarious personal agendas, not merely in any and every ones noggin who disagrees with them, but in the evolved intelligence of all of man kind, with the same old null intelligence insulting openly exaggerated, warped and distorted facts, burying the truth else where, hidden well away from their endless treacherous daily peace fraud rhetoric, as they promote their own nefarious warring agendas and carry on their insidious personalised all out wars, they violently fight, as they slay the facts, destroy the truth, and attempt to conquer minds, valiantly march on, attacking all forms of know intelligence, in the peace fraud brigades, insidious, futile, infantile, use less, fraudulent personal empty crusades ? ? ? ?
American from USA 13/09/2008 08:28:05 PM 
IP
Jail ad from venezuela
Some math for you. If one september eleven resulted the deaths of about one million must im than one thousand times would be enough to get rid of all of you guys. Wouldn't it???
To warmongers, liar evangelist from Canada 13/09/2008 09:06:12 PM 
IP
Different names, same mamma driller sub human evangelist cretin, you are like this because your Lord does not have a LEGAL DAD.
Thieving, murdering, lying, crusading and mamma drilling warmongers, evangelist cretins, Choose and Choose lovers, vomiting vermin everyday with propaganda, lies and deceptions. Rotten, subhuman, shay am less, really shay am less but not that much shay am less because still these any malls put their clothes on them, motivated by shay am less liar politicians and imperialist warmongers, uneducated backward, born in the street corners in the foul wombs of their hook are mammas drilled by several guys on the same night, always whining, ranting, lying and deceiving the world. These low blow pork dung sub human are the real problems for this world, no morality and no values just sensuality, bigotry, gang and drug trafficking and killing others on their street corners and on foreign lands. Now these sub human got a hook are pale in, going to buster dies the whole US, the churches will be brothels, priests will be child molesting more and mammas will be shaking the pie inns of their kids.
robert from USA 13/09/2008 09:37:56 PM 
IP
ME FRAUD
you are the lowest form of life and all you do is keep coming here insulting helpless people from other countries. i hope you die in a natural disaster. please go and drown in texas you loser.
SAB dar all Haarb from Canada 13/09/2008 10:31:31 PM 
IP
No or from Pakistan.
"May we find the courage to stand and strike those who strike us" Yes, but will you ever find the courage to strike at the re legion extreme mist s in your midst who are killing and oppression more of you than the West are? Will you stand up to the likes of the Tall ban? Been Hiding and his gang of murderers? The "insurgent" foreigners in Iraq attacking markets and police stations? The decadent leaders who spend billions on their own lavish lifestyles and do nothing for the poor and oppressed? The fathers who flame their daughters for not being Is I am ic enough? Will you shout out against these people too? Will you condemn the human exploders who detonate themselves in malls and schools? Will you strike out against those who kill school teachers whose only "crime" is to teach girls? Will you strike out against those who prevent girls from leaving a burning building as they are not fully covered? There are plenty of things to condemn in this world will you condemn them equally?
jalid from Venezuela 13/09/2008 10:49:42 PM 
IP
to american
it does NOT matter HOW MANY MORE DIE because you ARE GOING TO keep killing people ANYWAY. EVEN IF THEY STAY STILL AND DO NOTHING TO BOTHER YOU, YOU ARE GOING TO CONTINUE DOING IT. IT IS YOUR WAY OF LIFE. so why not die a DIGNIFIED death than (as the article states) AS A COLLATERAL DAMAGE FIGURE? DIE AS A FREE MAN DO NOT LIVE AS AN SLAVE. it took a few hundred thousand of your people to DIE IN ORDER TO liberate america from england RIGHT? SAME HERE. besides, with the advancements and availability, thanks to the white MAN who would do anything for money, NUKES WILL BE AVAILABLE AT YOUR LOCAL SEVEN ELEVEN VERY SOON. at the end the whole world will be destroyed. FINALLY, YOU WILL NOT ENJOY THE BENEFITS OF WHAT YOU USURPED AND STOLE FROM US. you, your nice car, your big house and the credit cards will go up in flames. STOP BEING SO CRUEL TO OTHERS, THATS ALL.
SAB, SELF CHOSEN LIAR from Venezuela 13/09/2008 11:05:19 PM 
IP
"Will you strike out against those who prevent girls from leaving a burning building as they are not fully covered"
CLASSIC SELF CHOSEN PROPAGANDA. the hilarious thing is that THIS kind of parasite FINDS AUDIENCES in america WHO WOULD ACTUALLY BELIEVE HIM! it will be a while before americans realize THE HOLOCAUST, THE "CHOSEN PEOPLE IDEA" AND THE STORY ABOUT HOW THE LORD "PROMISED" THEM PALESTINE are all BIG LIES just like the one in the title!
SAB dar all Haarb from Canada 13/09/2008 11:59:06 PM 
IP
Jailed
Are you denying that this event indeed happened in Mecca, Saudi Arabia on March eleven two thousand and two? Or are you calling me names and making false accusations as to my re legion background for merely mentioning this actual event and shining a light on your re legion that you would rather see extinguished and thus cover up your transgressions?
UNDENIABL ME Criminal Sins from USA 14/09/2008 12:57:54 AM 
IP
As usual, the ME is dam med if they do and dam med if they dont ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? (ONE.)
JUST EXACTLY "WHO", are you dome a s s ME bast yards talking about being innocent and help less all the way down the page, with your own typical two faced ME warmongering, daily camel *hit vomit ? Beanie, no less, multiple times, has openly declared, BOTH all in the name of each and every member of the ME mind set AND all in the name of the ME so called peaceful idea, that IN FACT, every single last man, woman, child, and baby, in THE WHOLE DAM ENTIRE WORLD, INCLUDING the ME itself, were justified ME targets, fair open game for ME mass slaughters, and were to be murdered on eye contact, if they did not conform to the ME mind sets thinking and the insidious inhuman ways of the ME OR were EVEN REMOTELY associated with or connected to those who dont conform ?
UNDENIABLE ME Criminal Sins from USA 14/09/2008 01:09:08 AM 
IP
As usual, the ME is dam med if they do and dam med if they dont ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? (TWO.)
It goes on across the board with the vast majority of the inhuman creatures leading the inhuman ME, as they point their figures in the air daily, ME justify and demand, the same global mass slaughtering ME war on the world, where each and EVERY, single last man, woman, child and baby on earth, not conforming to the inhuman ME, MUST be, INTENTIONALLY TARGETED, by the ME mind set and PURPOSEFULLY weeped from the face of the earth. Where it is UNDENIABLY, happening every day on all seven continents of the globe, as the ME mind set attacks, blows up and mass slaughters off any and all human life on earth, INTENTIONALLY ! ! ! Problem is, the ME is its own greatest sin and MOST insidious own murdering inhuman ME criminal in itself possible, for the ME is UNJUSTIFIED, in any killing, LET ALONE, INTENTIONALLY MURDERING, women, child ran and babies, outside of an openly declared ME war on the world, BY THE ME VERY OWN STATED BELIEFS AND CONVICTIONS.
UNDENIABLE ME Criminal Sins from USA 14/09/2008 01:11:31 AM 
IP
As usual, the ME is dam med if they do and dam med if they dont ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? (THREE.)
BUT, HOWEVER, THUS, AND THEREFORE, the ME CAN NOT and WILL NOT, openly declare its on going UNDENIABLE, INTENTIONAL, GLOBAL targeting of no less than women, child ran and babies, as an open official ME war on the war, less the ME could no longer play the piecing and whining pathetic ME victim NOR would the putrid self duped globally mass slaughtering collective ME mind set be able to piece and whine on itself daily, fraudulently blooming the ME on the rest of the world, "IF" the ME declared the UNDENIABLE CURRENT GLOBAL ME war on the world, that is going on RIGHT NOW ? ? ? ?
UNDENIABLE ME Criminal Sins from USA 14/09/2008 01:16:55 AM 
IP
As usual, the ME is dam med if they do and dam med if they dont ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? (FOUR.)
TO WHICH, you have the typical warped two faced, void of true beliefs, without real convictions, ME criminal twisted irony here, for WAR is WAR, people die and the ME simply could NOT play the putrid pathetic ME victim, if the ME was openly at war with the world, for there would no longer be these idle ME innocents nor empty claims of help less ME victims, of the ME very own declared GLOBAL war on all of man kind, as it should be NOW, if not for the ME desire to cower, existing and insufferably wallowing in its own UNDENIABLE GROSS VIOLATIONS of its own beliefs, collectively as one ME mind set, living in the insufferable sins of the ME, as joint ME UNJUSTIFIED ME global mass slaughtering ME murders, of innocent mans, women, child ran and babies, around the world daily, conveniently denying the ME is NOT at war, period, so as to maintain the ill making, intelligence insulting, putrid, pathetic fraudulently innocent victim status of the ME,
UNDENIABLE ME Criminal Sins from USA 14/09/2008 01:18:52 AM 
IP
As usual, the ME is dam med if they do and dam med if they dont ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? (FIVE.)
to be able to carry on the insidious, insufferable, futile, infantile daily blatant ME FRAUD, that the entire ME is "Innocent and Helpless" in the current officially undeclared on going ME war on the world ? GO FIGURE, the idle empty self righteous frauds of the ME, are DAM MED to HELLo if they dont declare the current mass slaughtering ME war on the world, and they are just DAM MED PERIOD, by their very own self a s s ripping two faced ****** up ME twisted logic, if they do officially declare an open ME so called peaceful ideas, war on the world ?
David from Canada 14/09/2008 02:55:04 AM 
IP
How small minded are statements like "That re legion of extremism" when the world just got a lot larger today.
While the israeli apologists and yokels remain fixated on the middle east, the world got larger. I would hope that Afghans do not turn to taliban as a result of all these civilians being killed, but this is the consequence of poor planning and not enough man power. Americans just resort to bombing the place. I would further hope that the taliban does not make deals with a new Russia in order to tie the u.s. down even more. Back room deals with the taliban sorts are exactly of course what americans did and resulted in many Russian boys not returning home you will remember. It seems when you think the yokels running the u.s. have dug as deep as you can go, out comes the shovel. The world for america just got a lot larger than just the middle east. But what else can we expect from this pack of ever losing failures.
David from Canada 14/09/2008 02:56:56 AM 
IP
"I do not see we are winning in Afghanistan"
"We can not kill our way out of this". This coming from the top brass.
gb from USA 14/09/2008 03:15:14 AM 
IP
which top brass? pleas be specific!
LOTS OF LAUGHS, TYPICAL COMING FROM A MURDERING AND THIEVING ME "is shameFUL" REFUGEE SPONGING OFF THE GREAT PEOPLE OF CANADA! WAY TO FUNNY! THE GREAT CANADIAN MOUNTIES ARE ON YOUR TRAIL! HOPE YOU SPEAK SPANISH OR PORTUGUESE, BECAUSE SOUTH AMERICA IS YOUR NEXT STOP! THE CANADIAN PEOPLE ARE READY AND WILLING TO SHOW YOU THE DOOR! I LOVE THESE LOBOTOMY STARVED MURDERING AND THIEVING ME "is shameFUL" FANATICS! THEY WILL LIE THIER WAY TO THE FIRE BELOW! LOTS OF LAUGHS!
David from Canada 14/09/2008 03:26:39 AM 
IP
"I do not see we are winning in Afghanistan"
" We can not kill our way out of this". This from the top brass.
Mike from USA 14/09/2008 03:29:52 AM 
IP
This is amusing to us
Once again, as we sip here in America and sit our ice, cool lemonade, we smile as we watch the destruction of these people, pour me another cool drink. We are happy it isn't happening on our land.
To ME fraud, unknown gb reject from Canada 14/09/2008 03:40:34 AM 
IP
Why so quiet you good cretins? You must be drilling your hook are mammas, your Lord does not have a LEGAL DAD. he he he he he he shay am less any malls.
Why are you so quiet you good cretins, you are drilling your hook are mammas? You ugly retired mute an lunatic pathetic low blow sub human hypocritical low life any mall warmongering liar, evangelist cretin, layman uneducated backward, you have only one problem, your Lord does not have a LEGAL DAD. He he he he he he he shay am less boost arch, always whining, ranting, no logic or facts just drivels and prejudice, those round jelly fish full of ray see ism and hat read. Go to hells, any malls. Put some lemonade between the legs of your hook are mamma and enjoy it, sarah pale in provides with some extra excitement, you crusading cretins, shay am less ugly any malls.
The Laughable ME from USA 14/09/2008 03:53:33 AM 
IP
David Boy
See there "David Boy", you started to make what almost had the merits of point, nearly made sense, and could have been mildly considered as at least a valid personal opinion, be it partially right or totally wrong, but then you just had to include your lunatic ME irrational inbred hat and indoctrinated in insane violent ME ignorance into it before you quit ? And of course as usual, you became just another one of the laughable insane, violent, hat filled, inhuman ME creatures in the eyes of the civilised world, that no one even pays attention to unless they are looking for a good daily laugh ? Now you are caught up in your own repeating lie, as a laughable, hilarious, slap stick, slip and fall back into your own ME camel *hit vomit, lying ME FRAUD ? SO attempt to save yourself to some degree, "WHICH TOP BRASS WAS IT ?", laughable "David boy" ? ? ?
Clock Work ME Ignorance from USA 14/09/2008 04:11:57 AM 
IP
The pathetic, putrid, violently insane, repeating infantile ME ignorance, endlessly keeps taking a beating, and keeps on mindlessly ticking, just like the predictable hands of a broken clock, it is always right on time twice a day ? ? ?
NO, actually "Canada" we were all just waiting for you to show back up, as usual, to clock out, as usual, at the same time, as usual, then go back to Ireland, climb up your tree and go to bed with all of your ignore ant, violently insane, selves, all of your many lying ME fraud insane alter ego's here that is, as usual. Right on time, so night night, Bond So.
David from Canada 14/09/2008 04:12:58 AM 
IP
Hey mike, let me freshen up that drink for you bud.
Yeah, these women and child wren provide no killing entertainment at all. You know what it's like, being a hero and having to murder all these women and child wren then have to fill out false paper work. Let me freshen up that drink bud. These people are no longer a target rich environment. Maybe we can start trouble with Russia. Yeah, that's it. But look what happened mike. *hit, they chased us out and have the scrotum to set up shop in our back yard. Oh *hit, lots of target rich environments down south u.s., eh mike? Let me freshen up that drink again bud. Yeah, killing women and kids was fun, but those Russians chased us right out. Them israeli's too! Who the hello do they think they are making americans run like that? Some more ice mike?
David from Canada 14/09/2008 04:31:59 AM 
IP
It seems obvious, especially to Georgians
or Afghans or Iraqis for that matter, that this version of yokel america can't get anything done. Canada is leaving Afghanistan in two and a half years, as the sober opinion here is we will not sacrifice beyond that. The Afghan people are one of the most resilient people on the planet. They have had to be. Better we leave and let them decide their own destiny in their own time. The idea of being afraid of the taliban coming to your home town u.s.a and putting all to the sword is the fear of the mentally challenged. Especially when far more real threats are forming near to home as a result of yokel stoop id. Eight years of stoop id is more than enough, wouldn't you say mike?
Ancient ME Con Games from USA 14/09/2008 05:13:06 AM 
IP
David Boy, any one ever told you that the same ancient ME con games, used to control the non evolved save age minds of the ME for centuries, has not worked on evolved civilised minds outside the ME for centuries ? ? ?
Excuse me "David Boy", but was it not the very same fraudulent premise of this ME con game of yours here, that undeniably had the end result of nine eleven ? Beanies own words was that he was literally SHOCKED at the overwhelming US response to nine eleven, meaning either he was an insane, self obsessed, megalomaniac, who had grandiose visions of unfettered, unchallenged world conquest or he was your typical, insane, ME indoctrinated, psycho sociopath, who had BOTH re legion based delusions of grandeur, seeking ME global conquest and the perversion crazed ME notion that he simply could mass murder at will and get away with it, all reinforced by the same false premise of your little con game here, that for years the US and the world, had just looked the other way or taken very week actions on ME terrorism attacks, ME global mass slaughters, and inhuman ME acts around the world, for years in the past ?
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[chottala.com] Private cars in Dhaka published on the daily star

Dear all
Today the daily star publish " Privat cars in dhaka"
www.thedailystar.net/story.php?nid=54632


Let us return to the private car. Whatever convenience and comfort it provides comes at various costs. Cars are the main source of pollutants worldwide. There is no such thing as a clean car; cars just vary in the amount they pollute. Despite increasingly stringent emissions control standards over the decades in the US, cars pollute more than they used tobecause people are driving more.

It is difficult for us to appreciate just how much cars pollute. The air in Dhaka city, after all, improved dramatically after the banning of two-stroke baby taxis, and again with the introduction of unleaded fuel. However, this is by no means an indication that the air in Dhaka is clean. Any trip to the countryside is a reminder of the pleasure of breathing clean air. Even in Dhaka, if we wake up early and take a walk, we can experience a bit of the pleasure of fresh air as each car passes, we can also understand just how much each car pollutes the air. As the streets fill with cars, the pollution rises. On hartal days, despite large numbers of people moving about the city, the air is fresh and the city (violence aside) is quiet. Carsand the wide paved roads needed to accommodate themalso emit a great deal of heat, making Dhaka even more insufferable in the many hot months.

Cars also are the main cause of noise pollution. A full 97% of students in Dhaka in a survey on noise pollution said that their studying is disrupted by car horns; 96% of the general public interviewed mentioned car horns as the main cause of noise pollution in Dhaka.[1] When rickshaws were on strike in October 2004, there were no rickshaws on the streets, yet the streets were as noisy as ever.

We would argue that since cars only transport roughly 10-20% of travellers, they should only have access to 10-20% of road space, for moving and parkingand should respect the rest of users, as well as the right to some peace and quiet of all the people working and living next to roads.

Presumably, one component of civilization is respecting the rights of others. The attitude of driverswho represent the wealthiest portion of societythat they alone should have full access to roadsis anti-democratic, anti-civilization, and disturbingly elitist. A society in which people fail to respect the rights of others, and in which the rich believe they should have special privileges on the roads as well as in every other aspect of life, is a society destined to fall into crime, selfishness, viciousness, and lack of the neighbourly friendliness that allows people to live comfortably together.
Syed Saiful Alam, Volunteer of Save Environment Movement

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Re: [chottala.com] CARETAKER GOVERNMENT INCREASED THE AMOUNTS OF BRIBE

Whenever you flush your commode, you pay tax for the water you used
and these judges of courts as well as police and other government
servants LIVE on that tax….so their mind will be polluted like shits,
it's natural.


--- In chottala@yahoogroups.com, Mohammad Sobhan <sobhanma_asme@...>
wrote:
>
>
>  CT government run a fake anti-corruption activities that actually
> increased the amounts of bribes at all the government offices. The
> officers who used to take 200 taka bribes now ask 2000 take bribe
to do
> the same job. If you go to RAJUK office, Nagar Bhaban (Dhaka
Municipal
> office), Controller of Export-Import office, Land Registration
offices
> etc. you will see how bribes are transacted in broad day light by
each
> and every clerks and officers of those offices which are even 5 to
10
> times higher than two years ago. Bribe is actually dirty like
yellow
> stools which is eaten by dirty officers came from low-grade
families
> and generally paid by citizens who are filthy in morally.
>
> Dear All
>
> You have forgotten to mention the justice department ? A lot of
people believe that the students who generally can't make good
results in school, college or univeristy go to study law and
ultimately become justice of high court or supreme court. Some people
believe that the care taker government failure is related to some
extent with the seperation of justice department with administration.
Some people even understand that Bangladesh is a country where the
administration and justice department should not be seperated at all.
I have read a book called educationist v/s justice which explains
some of these unequal argument.
>
> Let us all pray for our betterment in future. It will really be
very costly to maintain law and order as well as to control
corruption if pree 1/11 comes back.
>

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[chottala.com] Re: [Politicsbd] Supporters of both AL-BNP are like uneducated dogs

Well, the parties AL-BNP itself are not bad but the leaders are rotten
and their supporters are brainless creatures the way you said!


--- In politicsbd@yahoogroups.com, "nurisinha" <nurisinha@...> wrote:
>
> All the educated persons of the country know the corruption made by
AL-
> BNP politicians and nobody supports the parties. But there are
> uneducated people in the country who still support those criminals as
> they are like faithful dogs who don't care what their masters do.
>
>
> -Nuri
>

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[chottala.com] Protecting senior citizens' rights [Taken from the daily star]

 
 
Protecting senior citizens' rights 

 
cornwall.backtalk.com 

Whenever we want to impress the foreign investors about the strength of our country, we tell them that almost half of our population is below 24. The idea sounds promising to them. Today, everyone seems to be looking up to the youth. There are lots of opportunities coming up for them. 

But in our craze about the young guns we have forgotten the importance of the seniors. Today, an increasing number of our elders fear the thought of dying alone. 

The young are often caught up in the competitive lifestyle and find that they are unable to dedicate time and resources to caring for their elderly parents and relatives. Regretfully, the so-called nuclear family concept selected by the society, instead of the traditional extended family, has encouraged negligence to elders. 

In Bangladesh, a good number of Elders' Homes are functioning now and hundreds of inmates are living in those. Homicide and even suicides among the elderly have been known from different sources and on the increase while elder abuse, too, is on upward trend. These are indeed sad news. 

To safeguard the elders, the Government should enact the Protection of Rights of Elders Act and establish the National Council of elders. The Council will make arrangements to bring facilities to the existing elders to offer protection for people above the age of 65. In terms of the law, any person found guilty of an offence would be punished. According to the law no person would be allowed to wilfully neglect or ill-treat an elder. 

But will these legislative measures bring in 100 per cent of the expected results? Personally, I don't think so. In my opinion, persuasive means - not the enforceable legislative measures - remain a more effective means to redress the elders' issues of care and maintenance. 

We need to make provisions within our society for this demographic shift. Dreams are not restricted only to the youngsters. Certainly not! The veterans have dreams too. They dream of being in the vicinity of their own blood. They dream of being with their kith and kin.

They wish to be given considerable attention by people around them. Be contented to visualise their kith and kin's progress. Be respected by their children. In short, at the approaching end of their lives, they are meant to reap the fruits of their hard work. 

Unfortunately, in reality, somewhere down the line something goes wrong and they finally land up in a Home or compelled to live miserably neglected in the family. 

When all their dreams are shattered, they undergo a sort of depression and feel that any place outside the home is better to spend their time till the fag end of their lives. 

Statistics of those who are neglected and mistreated indicate that majority of them have well settled sons and daughters. The reality of today says that due to the advancements in medicine, people will continue to live longer. It implies that we are in for a country of millions of elders in the immediate years to come. But, have we as a society done anything about it? Or, at least, have we seriously thought about it?


Mohammad Shahidul Islam 
Tourism Worker




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