Sorry if this is a repost. This was sent to me in an email. It was written by Tamim Ansary, an Afghani-American writer.
<<I've been hearing a lot of talk about "bombing Afghanistan back to the
Stone
Age." Ronn Owens, on KGO Talk Radio today, allowed that this would mean
killing innocent people, people who had nothing to do with this atrocity,
but
"we're at war, we have to accept collateral damage. What else can we do?"
Minutes later I heard some TV pundit discussing whether we "have the belly
to
do what must be done."
And I thought about the issues being raised especially hard because I am
from
Afghanistan, and even though I've lived here for 35 years I've never lost
track of what's going on there. So I want to tell anyone who will listen
how
it all looks from where I'm standing.
I speak as one who hates the Taliban and Osama Bin Laden. There is no
doubt
in my mind that these people were responsible for the atrocity in New
York. I
agree that something must be done about those monsters.
But the Taliban and Ben Laden are not Afghanistan. They're not even the
government of Afghanistan. The Taliban are a cult of ignorant psychotics
who
took over Afghanistan in 1997. Bin Laden is a political criminal with a
plan.
When you think Taliban, think Nazis. When you think Bin Laden, think
Hitler.
And when you think "the people of Afghanistan" think "the Jews in the
concentration camps." It's not only that the Afghan people had nothing to
do
with this atrocity. They were the first victims of the perpetrators. They
would exult if someone would come in there, take out the Taliban and clear
out the rats nest of international thugs holed up in their country.
Some say, why don't the Afghans rise up and overthrow the Taliban? The
answer
is, they're starved, exhausted, hurt, incapacitated, suffering. A few
years
ago, the United Nations estimated that there are 500,000 disabled orphans
in
Afghanistan--a country with no economy, no food. There are millions of
widows. And the Taliban has been burying these widows alive in mass
graves.
The soil is littered with land mines, the farms were all destroyed by the
Soviets. These are a few of the reasons why the Afghan people have not
overthrown the Taliban.
We come now to the question of bombing Afghanistan back to the Stone Age.
Trouble is, that's been done. The Soviets took care of it already. Make
the
Afghans suffer? They're already suffering. Level their houses? Done. Turn
their schools into piles of rubble? Done. Eradicate their hospitals?
Done.
Destroy their infrastructure? Cut them off from medicine and health care?
Too late. Someone already did all that.
New bombs would only stir the rubble of earlier bombs. Would they at
least
get the Taliban? Not likely. In today's Afghanistan, only the Taliban eat,
only they have the means to move around. They'd slip away and hide. Maybe
the bombs would get some of those disabled orphans, they don't move too
fast,
they don't even have wheelchairs. But flying over Kabul and dropping bombs
wouldn't really be a strike against the criminals who did this horrific
thing. Actually it would only be making common cause with the Taliban--by
raping once again the people they've been raping all this time.
So what else is there? What can be done, then? Let me now speak with true
fear and trembling. The only way to get Bin Laden is to go in there with
ground troops. When people speak of "having the belly to do what needs to
be
done" they're thinking in terms of having the belly to kill as many as
needed. Having the belly to overcome any moral qualms about killing
innocent
people. Let's pull our heads out of the sand. What's actually on the table
is
Americans dying. And not just because some Americans would die fighting
their
way through Afghanistan to Bin Laden's hideout. It's much bigger than
that
folks. Because to get any troops to Afghanistan, we'd have to go through
Pakistan. Would they let us? Not likely. The conquest of Pakistan would
have
to be first. Will other Muslim nations just stand by? You see where I'm
going. We're flirting with a world war between Islam and the West.
And guess what: that's Bin Laden's program. That's exactly what he wants.
That's why he did this. Read his speeches and statements. It's all right
there. He really believes Islam would beat the west. It might seem
ridiculous, but he figures if he can polarize the world into Islam and the
West, he's got a billion soldiers. If the west wreaks a holocaust in
those
lands, that's a billion people with nothing left to lose, that's even
better
from Bin Laden's point of view. He's probably wrong, in the end the west
would win, whatever that would mean, but the war would last for years and
millions would die, not just theirs but ours. Who has the belly for that?
Bin
Laden does. Anyone else?
Tamim Ansary >>
<<I've been hearing a lot of talk about "bombing Afghanistan back to the
Stone
Age." Ronn Owens, on KGO Talk Radio today, allowed that this would mean
killing innocent people, people who had nothing to do with this atrocity,
but
"we're at war, we have to accept collateral damage. What else can we do?"
Minutes later I heard some TV pundit discussing whether we "have the belly
to
do what must be done."
And I thought about the issues being raised especially hard because I am
from
Afghanistan, and even though I've lived here for 35 years I've never lost
track of what's going on there. So I want to tell anyone who will listen
how
it all looks from where I'm standing.
I speak as one who hates the Taliban and Osama Bin Laden. There is no
doubt
in my mind that these people were responsible for the atrocity in New
York. I
agree that something must be done about those monsters.
But the Taliban and Ben Laden are not Afghanistan. They're not even the
government of Afghanistan. The Taliban are a cult of ignorant psychotics
who
took over Afghanistan in 1997. Bin Laden is a political criminal with a
plan.
When you think Taliban, think Nazis. When you think Bin Laden, think
Hitler.
And when you think "the people of Afghanistan" think "the Jews in the
concentration camps." It's not only that the Afghan people had nothing to
do
with this atrocity. They were the first victims of the perpetrators. They
would exult if someone would come in there, take out the Taliban and clear
out the rats nest of international thugs holed up in their country.
Some say, why don't the Afghans rise up and overthrow the Taliban? The
answer
is, they're starved, exhausted, hurt, incapacitated, suffering. A few
years
ago, the United Nations estimated that there are 500,000 disabled orphans
in
Afghanistan--a country with no economy, no food. There are millions of
widows. And the Taliban has been burying these widows alive in mass
graves.
The soil is littered with land mines, the farms were all destroyed by the
Soviets. These are a few of the reasons why the Afghan people have not
overthrown the Taliban.
We come now to the question of bombing Afghanistan back to the Stone Age.
Trouble is, that's been done. The Soviets took care of it already. Make
the
Afghans suffer? They're already suffering. Level their houses? Done. Turn
their schools into piles of rubble? Done. Eradicate their hospitals?
Done.
Destroy their infrastructure? Cut them off from medicine and health care?
Too late. Someone already did all that.
New bombs would only stir the rubble of earlier bombs. Would they at
least
get the Taliban? Not likely. In today's Afghanistan, only the Taliban eat,
only they have the means to move around. They'd slip away and hide. Maybe
the bombs would get some of those disabled orphans, they don't move too
fast,
they don't even have wheelchairs. But flying over Kabul and dropping bombs
wouldn't really be a strike against the criminals who did this horrific
thing. Actually it would only be making common cause with the Taliban--by
raping once again the people they've been raping all this time.
So what else is there? What can be done, then? Let me now speak with true
fear and trembling. The only way to get Bin Laden is to go in there with
ground troops. When people speak of "having the belly to do what needs to
be
done" they're thinking in terms of having the belly to kill as many as
needed. Having the belly to overcome any moral qualms about killing
innocent
people. Let's pull our heads out of the sand. What's actually on the table
is
Americans dying. And not just because some Americans would die fighting
their
way through Afghanistan to Bin Laden's hideout. It's much bigger than
that
folks. Because to get any troops to Afghanistan, we'd have to go through
Pakistan. Would they let us? Not likely. The conquest of Pakistan would
have
to be first. Will other Muslim nations just stand by? You see where I'm
going. We're flirting with a world war between Islam and the West.
And guess what: that's Bin Laden's program. That's exactly what he wants.
That's why he did this. Read his speeches and statements. It's all right
there. He really believes Islam would beat the west. It might seem
ridiculous, but he figures if he can polarize the world into Islam and the
West, he's got a billion soldiers. If the west wreaks a holocaust in
those
lands, that's a billion people with nothing left to lose, that's even
better
from Bin Laden's point of view. He's probably wrong, in the end the west
would win, whatever that would mean, but the war would last for years and
millions would die, not just theirs but ours. Who has the belly for that?
Bin
Laden does. Anyone else?
Tamim Ansary >>
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