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-----Original Message----- From: Stacey <slhester@earthlink.net< To: kristenm@jschmid.com <kristenm@jschmid.com< Date: Tuesday, September 18, 2001 3:53 PM Subject: FW: insights into afganistan ---------- From: Brettgelman@aol.com Date: Tue, 18 Sep 2001 11:45:00 EDT To: cgelman@earthlink.net, GelBros@aol.com Subject: Fwd: insights into afganistan Hey Mom and Dad, Noah sent me this, and I think it is very important to read. Love, Brett From: "noah tevye warner" <tevye39@hotmail.com< Date: Tuesday, September 18, 2001 9:55 AM To: abigailmecho@hotmail.com, adrianducontra@yahoo.com, ag777@earthlink.net, alexanderk@webtv.net, arabstrap79@hotmail.com, bestjenny@yahoo.com, Brady@proscenium.org, Brettgelman@aol.com, Brumalibu@aol.com, chad@bway.net, cmcpumpkinpie@aol.com, d_rock_c@yahoo.com, damien@thefarmproductions.com, Dave.Pottruck@Schwab.com, DDugas1998@aol.com, emma-darjeeling@wanadoo.fr, GKDbach@aol.com, Holson7040@aol.com, honornap@hotmail.com, ivybaldwindance@hotmail.com, jammerbugs@hotmail.com, jbmvision@hotmail.com, Juliemwarner@cs.com, justinlieberman@earthlink.net, katykatykh@hotmail.com, kurt@kurtbot.com, lahanakita@hotmail.com, ludovico212@earthlink.net, mearnsa@yahoo.com, mere.c@correoweb.com, mikeping@hotmail.com, mkennedy@factsonfile.com, mryzik@yahoo.com, murphy@bc-p.com, mwarner@aug.edu, neil@banchory.net, purdaysj@hotmail.com, randrejewski@gorp.com, samspice19@hotmail.com, SGoldoff@epva.org, SmashDamir@aol.com, spurday@waronwant.org, SQUiRTMTV@aol.com, stacyjacobsen@hotmail.com, stanley@freeze.co Subject: Fwd: insights into afganistan <Hello everyone, <<The following was posted here by a co-worker on our companies internal. <<It < <<comes from her friend, Tamim, a writer and columnist in San Francisco, who <<is also originally from afghanistan. << << <<---< << <<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. << <<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 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 < _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp
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