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Enron Mail |
This is relatively irrelavent but thought you might enjoy it...of course...it is made up...just like everything else forwarded on the internet none of these people actually exist...
-----Original Message----- From: Gang, Lisa Sent: Wednesday, September 19, 2001 11:37 AM To: Williams III, Bill Subject: FW: Important insight into our crisis -----Original Message----- From: Drager, Kevin [mailto:KDrager@idacorpenergy.com] Sent: Tuesday, September 18, 2001 1:36 PM To: Gang, Lisa Subject: FW: Important insight into our crisis Lisa, Just wanted to send this so you could look at it soon. I'll send another e-mail later. Kevin -----Original Message----- From: Drager, Kevin Sent: Tuesday, September 18, 2001 1:59 PM To: _Scheduler; Olson, Scott Subject: FW: Important insight into our crisis -----Original Message----- From: Johnson, Robyn Sent: Tuesday, September 18, 2001 12:57 PM To: Drager, Kevin Subject: FW: Important insight into our crisis -----Original Message----- From: Jean Cheney [mailto:cheney@utahhumanities.org] Sent: Monday, September 17, 2001 2:26 PM To: Natasha Saje; Lisa Bickmore; Sandy Anderson; Charles Davidson; scottcheney@earthlink.net; Kate Cheney; sunray@alltel.net Subject: Important insight into our crisis < <-----Original Message----- < <From: TPElie@aol.com [mailto:TPElie@aol.com] < <Sent: Monday, September 17, 2001 4:51 AM < <To: SnagIt6391@aol.com < <Subject: a rare bit of intelligence on the coming war < < < < < < < <This is from an Afghani-American scholar, Tamim Ansary, whom friends of < <friends at the World Bank and in the academy respect immensely. This is his < <take on < <Afghanistan and the whole mess we are careening into, and I think it merits < <serious thought. Pass it along if you know folks who might want to ponder < <this addition to the national conversation. < <Tim < <******** < <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 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 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 < < < < < Max Harris, Executive Director < Wisconsin Humanities Council < 222 S. Bedford Street < Madison < WI 53703 < Phone: 608/262-0706 < Fax: 608/263-7970 < Email: MRHARRI1@FACSTAFF.WISC.EDU < <
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