I think the Taliban may have screwed the pooch on this one

most people, including the majority of afghans, recognize the difference between decent folks and the other kind, and my afghan friends tell me that the taliban definitely put its collective tit in the proverbial wringer over this one...

One gave up a lucrative practice to give free dental care to children who had never seen a toothbrush. Others had devoted whole decades of their lives to helping the Afghan people through war and deprivation.

The years of service ended in a hail of bullets in a remote valley of a land that members of the medical team had learned to love.

The bodies of the 10 slain volunteers - six Americans, two Afghans, a German and a Briton - were flown Sunday back to Kabul by helicopter, even as friends and family bitterly rejected Taliban claims the group had tried to convert Afghans to Christianity.

Also flown to the capital was the lone survivor of the attack, an Afghan driver who said he was spared because he was a Muslim and recited Islamic holy verses as he begged for his life. The International Assistance Mission, which organized the trip, said the driver had been a trusted employee with four years of service.

Police said they don't know if he is a witness or an accomplice in the killings, claimed by the Taliban.

it's one thing to knock off those who are killing your neighbors, their families and innocent children - or work for those who are - but it's another to execute people who are bringing free health and dental care to people who have never had it... most of the afghans i know have little use for the taliban anyway and this kind of behavior certainly isn't calculated to change their minds...

as a final comment, as soon as i heard that the driver had been spared, i knew immediately he would be seen as a suspect... the extreme irony is that if one of the foreigners had been spared, there wouldn't have been a moment's doubt about his/her innocence... but an afghan...? no way...

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