War from an Afghan American's point of view

[ravenmore]

thought this was interesting folks. kinda scared the hell out of me....

____________________________

A must-read from an Afghan American

This is from Tamim Ansary, a writer and columnist in San Francisco who is
a native of Afghanistan. It's both interesting and chilling....

* * * *
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 Bin 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 rat's 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

[Ltspd]

That is interesting. Something I will pass on.

I posted over at RC, hope you dont mind.

[ravenmore]

not at all

[Biomanjcs72]

All too relevant. am passing along.

[Firefish]

I'm sure the People In Charge are taking all the innocents into account as I'm sure if there were no innocents...the war would've already been over.

[ravenmore]

the part that bothers me is the theory that bin Laden is orchestrating the whole thing to turn this into an Islam vs. West conflict. Thank God (or Allah) that Pakistan is cooperating with us at this point.

[organicreefer]

hey ravenmore, remember when i asked you last friday if you noticed anyone going "soft"

[ravenmore]

not sure what you mean by that

[ccull]

"Thank God (or Allah)" - ironically enough, the "Big Threee(tm)" - despite the interfaith friction - all worship the same God.

[ravenmore]

yep - "Allah" is just arabic for God. Was just playing with words...

[organicreefer]

ravenmore ,
what i meant was that by last friday i had noticed a proliferation of stories exactly like the one you posted ,along with poeple who want to "pass them along" poeple going soft,big time.what am i thinking though ,we live in one of the "softest "nations on earth.im convinced there wont be a war(at least not an invasion or WIDESPREAD bombing) with afghanistan at this point,so you can all rest assured about the "poor afghans"

[ravenmore]

I don't think it's "going soft", I think it's just identifying the proper enemy and going after them. The enemy is not even really Afghanistan. We DO NOT recognize the Taliban as the legitimate government of Afghanistan and, in fact, the Northern Alliance (the Afghanistan coilition fighting the Taliban) are the people who hold the seat for Afghanistan at the U.N.. Point in fact, they are the nearest thing to a government there that we recognize and THEY'RE ON OUR SIDE!!!! What do you want us to do, bomb our own allies? And if we're going into a ground war to root out the Taliban and bin Laden, we WILL need their help.

Also, from what the guy who wrote the article says, most Afghanistans hate the Taliban. The enemy is not the country, but rather a group of criminals hiding in its borders.

[Firefish]

Thanks Ravenmore, I had a few choice words for organicreefer but you took care of that, also like to add...One dosen't have to be soft to feel for "all" the innocent life being taken by this event, american or otherwise....

[organicreefer]

hey guys dont get all defensive ,nothing personal,remeber its jmo,and im just me firefish,i agree totally with youre first response to the post,i feel the same way.
i just feel that right now ,we should be thinking of our own,screw them.

[Firefish]

I'm a little ticked off myself that it has been 10 days since the attack and Bush is still entertaining "talks" with the Taliban. Vaporizing them I could see, because they're all a bunch of criminals.

[Ninong]

I believe President Bush talked to the Taliban tonight, but I doubt that they were entertained.

Ninong

[organicreefer]

well the taliban has "talked back",and they arent going to give up bin ladin without proof.the afghanistan ambassador to pakistan said"if america wants a showdown it will get one",and the afghanistan poeple will never give in to our "evil might".
can you say JIHAD
75 % of the pakistani poeple are against us too.

[schrocat]

Originally posted by organicreefer
75 % of the pakistani poeple are against us too.

Where did that stat come from?
All the reports I have read indicate that the support for the Taliban is marginal at best and limited to areas near the border.

If anything, Bin Laden is more popular than the Taliban. He's a "Robin Hood" in the eyes of some poor...but not to all.

CNN had an interview with a young Pakistani woman (an uncovered university student...cool) who gave some pretty solid assurances that the majority of Pakistan is quite sane, fully aware of the problem, fully behind the US, and able to differentiate between from an attack on a terrorist and an attack on "Islam".


l8r,

[organicreefer]

schrocat ,theats what they said on the news this morning,that though the pakistani government was supporting us,the latest poll said 75% of pakistanis were against allowing the us to stage operations from pakistan.

[schrocat]

organic,
Opposition to troop placement shouldn't be given a blanket "they're against us" IMO.