On bombing of Afghanistan

As it enters its second week of selective bombing of Afghanistan, the United States gives the unpleasant impression of ... indecisiveness. Its war aim ... is to render bin Laden's few thousand men harmless by neutralizing ... the Taliban regime that has set itself up as a protector of the terrorist network ....

For the moment, nothing seems to be going according to plan ...

By constantly putting off ... the question of post-Taliban power, the United States is condemning itself to continuing the bombing ... which will necessarily create civilian victims, without making sense to ordinary people for much longer.

It is high time Washington understands this and remembers that it is possible to devise, with United Nations' help, a solution to the question of transitional power in Kabul.

-- Liberation, Paris