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> > Subject: Afghanistan--realistic assessment
> > >
> > >          A deeply sobering assessment by an Afghan.
> > >
> > > *****************
> > >
> > > Dear Friends,
> > >          Yesterday I heard a lot of talk about "bombing
> > > Afghanistan back to the Stone Age." Ron Owens, on KGO Talk
> > > Radio 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," and he asked,
> > > "What else can we do? What is your suggestion?" Minutes later
> > > I heard a TV pundit discussing whether we "have the belly to
> > > do what must be done." And I thought about these issues
> > > 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 been going on over there. So I want to share a few
> > > thoughts with anyone who will listen.
> > >
> > >          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 fervently wish to see
> > > those monsters punished. 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
> > > captured Afghanistan in 1997 and have been holding the
> > > country in bondage ever since.
> > >
> > >            Bin Laden is a political criminal with a master 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 love for someone to eliminate the Taliban and clear out
> > > the rats nest of international thugs holed up in their country. I
> > > guarantee it.
> > >
> > >            Some say, if that's the case, why don't the Afghans rise
> > > up and overthrow the Taliban themselves? The answer is,
> > > they're starved, exhausted, damaged, and incapacitated. A few
> > > years ago, the United Nations estimated that there are 500,000
> > > disabled orphans in Afghanistan-a country with no economy,
> > > no food. Millions of Afghans are widows of the approximately
> > > two million men killed during the war with the Soviets. And
> > > the Taliban has been executing these women for being women
> > > and has buried some of their opponents alive in mass graves.
> > > The soil of Afghanistan is littered with land mines and almost
> > > all the farms have been destroyed.
> > >
> > >            The Afghan people have tried to overthrow the Taliban.
> > > They haven't been able to. We come now to the question of
> > > bombing Afghanistan back to the Stone Age. Trouble with that
> > > scheme is, it's already been done. The Soviets took care of it.
> > > 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?
> > > There is no infrastructure. Cut them off from medicine and
> > > health care? Too late. Someone already did all that. New
> > > bombs would only land in 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.
> > > (They have already, I hear.) 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 be making
> > > common cause with the Taliban-by raping once again the people
> > > they've been raping all this time
> > >
> > >            So what else 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. I think that when people speak of
> > > "having the belly to do what needs to be done" many of them
> > > are thinking in terms of having the belly to kill as many as
> > > needed. They are thinking about overcoming moral qualms
> > > about killing innocent people. But it's the belly to die not kill
> > > that's actually on the table. Americans will die in a land war to
> > > get Bin Laden. 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.
> > >
> > >            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. The invasion approach
> > > is a flirtation with global war between Islam and the West. And
> > > that is Bin Laden's program. That's exactly what he wants and
> > > why he did this thing. Read his speeches and statements. It's all
> > > right there.
> > >
> > >            AT the moment, of course, "Islam" as such does not
> > > exist. There are Muslims and there are Muslim countries, but
> > > no such political entity as Islam. Bin Laden believes that if he
> > > can get a war started, he can constitute this entity and he'd be
> > > running it. 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 Muslim lands, that's a billion
> > > people with nothing left to lose, even better from Bin Laden's
> > > point of view. He's probably wrong about winning, in the end
> > > the west would probably overcome-whatever that would mean
> > > in such a war; but the war would last for years and millions
> > > would die, not just theirs but ours. Who has the belly for that?
> > > Bin Laden yes, but anyone else?
> > >
> > >            I don't have a solution. But I do believe that suffering
> > > and poverty are the soil in which terrorism grows. Bin Laden
> > > and his cohorts want to bait us into creating more such soil, so
> > > they and their kind can flourish. We can't let him do that.
> > > That's my humble opinion.
> > >
> > > Tamim Ansary

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"The Constitution is not an instrument for the government to restrain the people, it is an instrument for the people to restrain the government." ---Patrick Henry

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