| Holger Kube_Ventura on 17 Sep 2001 11:02:01 -0000 |
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>From: dhalleck >Reply-To: [email protected] >To: [email protected] >Subject: [pttv] >Date: Fri, 14 Sep 2001 14:05:54 -0400 >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 hae 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 > > > >This is the Paper Tiger TV members discussion list. >An archive of past messages is located at: >http://www.tao.ca/~jamie/pttv. The archive is password >protected. For access, contact Jamie ([email protected]). > >To unsubscribe, send an email message to: >[email protected] with the message: >unsubscribe. ------------------------------------------------------- rohrpost - deutschsprachige Liste fuer Medien- und Netzkultur Archiv: http://www.nettime.org/rohrpost Info: http://www.mikro.org/rohrpost Ent/Subskribieren: http://post.openoffice.de