"Our investigation is proof that we are concerned about these things," US spokesman Lt. Col. Tucker Mansager told reporters in Kabul when announcing a probe into the charges. "Our center of gravity is the Afghan people. When allegations like this come to light, that can affect that center of gravity and we take that very seriously."
It is hard to visualize that center holding.
Wandering amidst the worn and battered buildings of Ghazni city along garbage-strewn streets, one sees ragged and dirty children run by, scarred by leishmaniasis lesions. In the glory days of the Ghaznavid Empire that raised the now-endangered minarets almost a thousand years ago, Ghazni was a world center of learning, in whose great libraries and enchanted gardens the epic poet Firdausi and the encyclopaedist al-Biruni labored and rested. As the resurgent Taliban gathers in the surrounding mountains, it becomes harder to imagine that these kids will have a chance to emulate the great achievements that these minarets embody, as they have been promised so often over the last 30 months. What that means for the West should be clear to anyone who remembers the immediate post-9/11 resolve - that the perpetrators of those atrocities should never again enjoy state protection.
Perhaps the terrorists will return, and in the course of violence or neglect bring these two towers crashing to the ground.
They have done such a thing before.