My humble Opinion

[Guest guest]

> >>

> >>Dear Friends,

> >>Yesterday I heard a lot of talk about "bombing Afghanistan back to the

>Stone

> >>Age." Ronn 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 have 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