> Subject: FW: A view from Afghanistan
>
>
> 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.
>
>
> "Gary T.
>
>
> 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 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
>
