What little was reported in the US on the Antonovs was there were some aircraft sent by Pakistan to get out some Chechans and Pakistani nationals “working for the Taliban.” The impression was a bunch of unfortunate clerks caught in a bad situation and fearing for their lives petioned their government to save them from maurading liberators.
It was only mentioned briefly with no follow-up and no real details. Certainly no mention that it was a rescue airlift of combatants.
Personally, I’ve got to believe that the only way anything could have made the run four times was the US allowed it. This is supported by the fact the final flight was forced away by Northern Alliance ground troops – who obviously weren’t privy to the arrangement – and still managed to escape without fighter contact.
Theories abound on why we let them escape. A couple of my favorites are:
1) it was a political bone for our hard-pressed ally, Pakistan.
2) it will be a pretext to move on to phase two when the mainstream press suddenly discovers that, ” a large number of Al Qaeda and Taliban warriors who made a daring escape in the final hours before the fall of Konduz have been located in ____ (fill in the blank)”
It could be that Bush is very aware of the evil snakes still lurking in the political garden at home and sees this as a way to end run their upcoming machinations. Instead of widening the war, he will be simply following up on his promise to get “all those who aid and abet the terrorists.” On another personal note, there are a number of notables in both the House and the Senate that, given their to zeal to discredit Bush and the Republician Party, could reasonably be described with those words.
Only time and independent news reporters will tell.
