Monday, April 11, 2011

Cain and Abel in Afghanistan...From the Washington Post

Brothers take side in Afghanistan and worry about meeting each other on the field of battle...a story in Modern Times but as old as the ages....Brother against Brother

Cain and Abel in Afghanistan By Joshua Partlow, Washington Post

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan - For most of their lives, Gul and Razziq slept under the same dusty blankets on the same dirt floors. They toiled side by side in the same potato fields and prayed in the same mosque, two poor brothers in a forgotten corner of the Afghanistan war.

Gul, the elder brother, was the first to choose. With no gun or money, he walked out of his home one summer day and into the ranks of the Taliban. Razziq soon followed, but down a different road: to the barracks of the U.S.-backed Afghan national police. The brothers' decisions have transformed them into enemies and forced them to consider a day they had never imagined.

"I don't know when I will face my brother on the battlefield, but it's only a matter of time," Gul said. And when it happens, Razziq said, "I will have no choice but to fight him back."

In Afghanistan, personal choice is often all that separates America's friends from its enemies. Combatants share the same religion, land, language, even blood. "Upset brothers" is how President Hamid Karzai describes the Taliban....

The rest of the story is here :

http://www.canada.com/Cain+Abel+Afghanistan/4594926/story.html#ixzz1JFwHCsh9

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