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["Robyn Levash" <questarabians@inreach.com>]

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Sent: Monday, September 17, 2001 4:42 PM
Subject: (no subject)


>
> My daughter, Elizabeth, sent me this.  Well worth reading.  Kathy
>
> The following comes from Tamim, a writer and columnist in San Francisco.
> Incidentally, Tamin is originally from Afghanistan. It is a very well
thought
> out, rational and thought provoking commentary. In  light of Tuesdays
tragedy
> and the unthinkable idea of what is yet to come I thought I should share
this
> with as many people as possible.
>
> Take care,
> Dawn
>
>
> * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
> * * * * * * *
>
>
> 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 deeply hates the Taliban and Osama
> Bin Laden. My
> hatred
>
> comes from first hand experience. 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 would not 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?
>
> Unfortunately, Bin Laden does. Anyone else?
>
>
> In Peace,
>
>
> Tamim Ansary
>