From: Henry Subject: Re: Afghan-American speaks Date: Thursday, September 27, 2001 6:03 PM haniba...@webtv.net (Anibal) wrote in message news:... > Afghan-American speaks > > Group: alt.discuss.clubs.public.issues.misc.proud americans Date: Thu, > Sep 20, 2001, 10:49am (EDT-3) From: WebG...@webtv.net (Goldilocks) > This was posted in another group, there are some opinions here that I > think are worth reading and thinking about. > - > - > - > An Afgani-American writes > > 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 Seemss to me this guy knows what the deal looks now. --- Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free. Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com). Version: 6.0.277 / Virus Database: 146 - Release Date: 9/5/01