this applies to Iran and Iraq as well!

["Shahab Mesbah" <meteor2@moscow.com>]

 Mir Tamim Ansary is an Afghani-American writer. Here is his take on
 Afghanistan and the whole mess we are in.

***Mir Tamim Ansary on Afghanistan

"I've been hearing a lot of talk about "bombing Afghanistan back to the
Stone Age." Ronn Owens [2], 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?"
     >
     >Mir Tamim Ansary