Fw: Another view

["Sue Hovey" <suehovey@moscow.com>]

I found this provocative and think I'll share it even though pleas such as
this one are already being posted--thank heavens.

Sue Hovey
----- Original Message -----
From: Bill Frye <billfrye1@prodigy.net>
To: Arthur Armstrong <aarmstro@slonet.org>
Cc: Sue Hovey <suehovey@moscow.com>
Sent: Saturday, September 15, 2001 9:54 PM
Subject: Fw: Another view


> Another opinion you won't hear on TV or the radio.
> Subject: Another view
>
>
>
> > > Dear Friends, The following was sent to me by my friend Tamim Ansary.
> Tamim
> > is an Afghani-American writer. He is also one of the most brilliant
people
> I
> > know in this
> > life. When he writes, I read. When he talks, I listen. Here is his take
on
> > Afghanistan and the whole mess we are in.
> >
> > >
> > > Dear Gary and whoever else is on this email thread:
> > >
> > > 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 peoplespeak 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.
> > >
> > > Tamim Ansary
> >
> >
>