I tried to get up earlier this morning to watch the meteor shower, but I couldn’t see anything. My eyes were hermetically sealed. It was much too early for me. They were more cooperativewhen I flipped on the TV a few hours later to catch up with the body count. The war, we were told, was going well with the Taliban in retreat and some of its members reportedly committing suicide rather than give up. The US Air Force was lending a hand with some of the most intense bombing of the war. We never saw that or its consequences. It was hard to smell the blood, but youknow that the testosterone is pumping up for a final kill in the corridors of the Pentagon as the high tech war machine grinds on against the tattered remains of the Talibanfaithful. Any guesses on the final death toll> (Be sure to factor in the starving people who are not receiving food aid, thanks to the chaos of war and in-fighting.)

If we are to believe Faoud Ajami’s analysis of Al Jazeera’s programming in today’s New York Sunday Times magazine, their viewers are watching comparisons of what may be his last stand and the final heroic moments of CheGuevara, the Latin America guerilla leader back in l967, when he too was hunted like an animal. El Che was captured, and murdered by CIA agents who cut off a piece of a finger as asouvenir and later turned up among Richard Nixon’s merry band of Watergate conspirators. This parallel is being romanticized. Osama bin Laden in no Che, and the values he stands for are hardly ones that inspire the world in the way. But why let the facts get in the way of an allegorical metaphor?

GOING NUCLEAR

And as evidence surfaces that Bin Laden had been making plans to go nuclear, some experts believe that in fact the US Air Force is deploying nuclear materials. Here is areport out of Australia on the use of weapons hardened with depleted uranium, a concern that surfaced in the Gulf War and later in Kosovo. I haven’t read much about thisin the US presss:

Depleted Uranium Toxicity in Afghanistan

by Richard S. Ehrlich

“ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - American warplanes are attacking Afghanistan with depleted uranium weapons which could poison combatants and civilians, especially children, according to U.S. officials.

“The possibility of radioactive dust storms sweeping across Afghanistan and polluting rivers has meanwhile sparked fears in Pakistan.

“The radioactive dust released by the impact of these weapons can easily get into the food chain and the water supply through the Kabul River in Afghanistan and thus into Pakistan’s Indus [River],” reported Dawn newspaper.

“There are simply no contingency measures to brace people against such a disastrous humanitarian fallout,” Dawn added.

How credible is this information? I have no way of evaluating it. Similar reports arose and were downplayed in the Gulf and Kosovo wars. I can more easily evaluate the next item from the point of view of the US effort to win hearts and minds in theMoslem World. You will recall the debate over whether or not to stop fighting for Ramadan. The bombers won that won, and now they may be inviting more holy war withanother mistake during this holy month. This is unfortunate, but for every blow struck against Bin Laden, incidents like this just win more angry young Muslims over tohis cause.

“U.S. Bombs Strike Mosque as Ramadan Starts

WASHINGTON - U.S. Air Force warplanes damaged a mosque in eastern Afghanistan as the Muslim holy month of Ramadan began on Friday when a malfunctioning bomb missed its target, the U.S. military said. ”

WHERE HAS OSAMA GONE?

It still remains to be seen where Mr. Evil has gone, or for that matter, if indeed, the Taliban is Taligone. The Debkafile.com site, often a mishmash of right wing Israeliintelligence analysis but with sources that can’t be ignored says the world is being flim flammed, and that this war is a long war from being run. You won’t find this itemin today’s New York Times:

“According to DEBKAfile’s military sources, the United States believes that most of the Taliban’s 60,000-strong fighting force and its weaponry in Afghanistan have escaped with low casualties from the heavy US bombing strikes and the lightning Northern Alliance offensive. Information from the battlefront shows no more than 900 Taliban fighters have been killed. Taliban arsenals of between 250 and 300 Scud ground-to-ground missile arsenals, hidden in the mountains of Afghanistan, remain intact. According to intelligence sources, they are reserved for use against cities captured by the Northern Alliance and possibly also towns in Pakistan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. US bombers and the Northern Alliance made greater inroads on Osama bin Laden’s Al Qaeda group than the Taliban. Intelligence estimates put its losses as between 2,000 and 3,000 men - among them Pakistanis, Chinese, Chechens, Saudis, Egyptians, Yemenis, Jordanians and many Palestinians. ”

READING THE SUNDAY TIMES

What you do find in the mighty Sunday Times of real value appears not on page one, but buried way back at the bottom of B 3. Its the last sentence in an article about thepolitics of the Afghan conflict, which, as I have been complaining has been downplayed for the higher drama of the bang bang. It wasn’t even written by a Times reporterbut instead comes from Reuters sans byline. (How ungerous their editors are) It refers to how political factions with a long history of fighting each other are now beingasked to regroup and form a representative government, and how in the recent past they proved unwilling and unable to do so at the cost of 50,000 lives in Kabul alone. Itnotes that the former unelected President of Afghanistan Burhanyddin Rabbani is back, ostensibly to help create a new government rather than restore himself into the topjob, The last time out, he was part of a revolving Presidency which he refused to allow to revolve and clung stubbornly to power uintil ousted. And then what happened? Here’s thatsentence: “The infighting among mujadeen groups intensified, law and order disintegrated, the Taliban was born.”

Now Rabbani wants to move back into the vacuum, while others are holding out for the return of deposed King Zahir Shah. You never hear much about this guy and hisbackground, or indeed the racial coflicts and history of racism inside Afghanistan. Al Sharpton’s gonna love this history lesson written by Nick Cullather a professor of history at Indiana University.) which appeared November 15th in the San Francisco Chronicle. He explains the the relationship between some of theseethnic factions including the majority Pashtun tribes, to which I have yet to hear any reference made on the hours of TV news programs I have been devouring for grist inthis column. He says tthat the “The invention of a democratic tradition was part of the creation of a “white” Pashtun identity.” p> AFGHAN HISTORY AND RACISM

“Comprising less than half the population, Pashtuns claimed entitlement as an advanced race, the bearers of modernity and progress. … Returning from the 1936 Olympics in Berlin, the royal family declared its appreciation for Nazi efficiency….

“A U.S. diplomat described Zahir Shah’s kingdom in 1955 as a Soviet-style “police state, where there is no free press, no political parties, and where ruthless suppression of minorities is the accepted pattern.”

“But development aid pulled the United States into the king’s racial politics. U.S.-funded irrigation projects near Kandahar provided a pretext for ethnic cleansing, allowing the monarchy to remove Tajiks and Hazaras from their lands and to settle Pashtuns in their place…

Among the resettled families were the parents of Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar, who was born in 1962 in a village outside of Kandahar.

Zahir Shah tried and failed. His 30-year experiment in ethnic nationalism isn’t worth repeating.”

THIS IS CHRISTIANNE AMANPOUR REPORTING

Which leaves us exactly where backing whom? One thing is for sure, Christianne is very much there, on the ground. CNN’s Christiane Armapour, took us to the remains of what had been the Parliament building in Kabul where watchmencouldn’t tell her where the National Assembly even met. She was doing a live update this morning to the story I watched yesterday on the political infighting that is keepingThe Northern Alliance, or United Front, as they call themselves are under immense pressure not to act unilaterally. One did not come away from her report very encouraged.

In some circles, Christianne, who I liked alot more until she married Madeleine Allbright’s chief flack James Rubin, has been unfairly targeted by an anti-CNN sniping unit acrossthe media terrain. First, NY POST scold Andrea Peyser lambasted her as a “war slut.” Indignant, she protested directly to her boss of bosses Rupert Murdoch and won anapology. Now the Wall Street Journal’s culture snob Tonku Varasarajan has gone after her as the “diva of parachute journalism: in lieu of informing us better,she sells us a lifestyle. The genre owes more to histrionic traditions than to old fashioned news gathering, and is ultimately about staging, not investigation.”

Come on Tunku, why all the cheap shots.You know that TV News itself is not all that well suited to investigations. I have found her far more substantitive than most of the network boys in flak jackets. Is thissexist or what? “Ms Amanpour’s accent is misinterpreted as erudition by Americans while her alluring dark looks are thought to convey an anti-Barbie seriousness of mind.” It sounds to me Tunku, thatyou are in love, in love with those alluring dark looks that you seem to scorn, while professing fidelity to Asheligh Banfield of that other Microserf network MSNBC. All this piling on of dense and clever putdowns masks a cold crush wrapped up in a stuff upper lip BBC chauvinism whose Oxford accents are probably more compatible with the WSJ ethos. Yuk all around.

COMING: THE AL-CHOMSKY NETWORK

WANTED: AN AL-CHOMSKY NETWORK

You want some substance, something to chew on? Then, check out “9/ll”,the new Open Media book of interviews with the still relevant, always challenging and often criticized Noam Chomsky. Maya Jaggi in a Guardian profile last May said “Chomsky ranks with Marx, Shakpespeare and the Bible as one of the ten most quoted sources in the Humanities.” I am not sure how many readers of the Koran know his work. What is remarkable is that this 125 page collection published by Seven Stories Press, my one time publisher, has arranged for simultaneous publication in Australia, Brazil, France, Germany, Greece, Holland, India, Italy, Japan, Korea, Norway, Portugal, Russia, Sweden, South Africa, Spain, Taiwan. Wow! And why do so many flock to his work? They are seeking out truths deeper than journalism, context, history and background missing in most media. And thanks Seven Stories for rereading my book to pluck out the word “Dissects” as the best description of Noam C’s method for searching for the root causes of the catastrophe of September 11. Chomsky does not rationalize or throw conspiracy theories around about those events aither, and instead brands them an atrocity. The book is worth reading for another way of looking at issues that rarely creep into or crawl below the news. It will give you something to think about and argue with. What’s need is more Chomsky, not less. How about an Al Chomsky network

ANOTHER READER URGES THAT THIS COLUMN CONTINUE

Responding to my request to readers for feedback on the column and whether it should continue, this most thoughtful admonition came in from someone named Bhakti in Salt Lake City. Read it. Perhaps, it will inspire you to write too to me at dissector@mediachannel.org

“Why would you want to quit running the dissector web log? Is it because you don’t feel enough appreciation? I’d suggest you forget about that one because it can only drive you crazy. I mean, if we waited to be appreciated before we were willing to have children, would humanity continue? Sometimes you just have to do a good thing even if not enough people appreciate it.

” Do you think you are making no difference? Or not enough difference? How much difference would it have to make to have it be worth the trouble? Isn’t the cause of truth important enough to make an effort regardless of how much impact it is going to make? Light is light. Even the smallest match makes a great difference in an otherwise dark room.

” Maybe you find that you are obsessive compulsive and ought to be doing something else with your talents. Not writing the log won’t change the obsessive-compulsiveness. How else would we get such info, if not from somebody obsessed?

“Don’t you think that the gods that be gave you the obsessive-compulsiveness, the talents, the internet opportunity, just so you could carry out this present role? I say it’s almost none of your business whether the column pleases people, or makes a difference, or drives you nuts. You simply have to do it because it is your duty.

” And if you don’t believe me, read “How Can I Help,” now out of print, by Ram Dass and Daniel Goleman. (I think) (IT IS PAUL GORMAN! DS) It’s about the dilemmas we get into when we set out to be helpful, and burnout, and so on.

” I read your column every day no matter how long it is.

“Bhakti in Salt Lake City

Thanks Bhakti. I am humbled, and now will abandon the keyboard in search of the gods of Nature and discover the day. I will be speaking later this afternoon in my own ancestral homeland, the People’s Republic of The Bronx.