My son has put up a web page on terrorism, Afghanistan, etc. at: http://sonewmedia.com/resources/war2001/ If you have good stuff send it to him at: [EMAIL PROTECTED] -----Original Message----- From: Max Sawicky [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Friday, September 21, 2001 8:19 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [PEN-L:17479] RE: Bombing Afghanistan.. The U.S. is not merely bombing. It's going to invade and depose the government. Or at least Bush implied that it's going to. The speech was very specific in its open- endedness. Afghanistan is the first target, but implicitly about 7 other countries are fair game as well. But in any case it's hard to know what the Gov thinks it is going to do. Check the State Dept reports on terrorism. I took a spin through them last night. The chief offenders, according to the reports, are Iran and Syria, mostly for hosting Palestinian-related groups. Both are particularly tough nuts, for different reasons. Iran because it's a huge country, Syria because it is deeply entwined in conflict with Israel. The Saudi's have explicitly warned against any attack on Syria. State says Hamas is funded by individual benefactors in Saudi Arabia. Sudan gets honorable mention because OBL's business interests are there. Of course there are also Iraq, which had the best reason to support the attack, assuming its role could be concealed, and Pakistan, a country that seems ripe for destabilization and chaos. The complexity of all this makes Vietnam look pretty simple. I watched my neighbor's boy grow up. He used to cut my lawn (well-compensated, naturally). Nows he's in the Marines. My mission is to prevent him from getting killed to satisfy an ill-considered, politically-driven strategic objective. I'm not quite sure how to do it yet, but I'm pretty sure 'hands off Afghanistan' is not going to do the trick. mbs
