<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN"> <HTML><HEAD> <META content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1" = http-equiv=Content-Type> <META content="MSHTML 5.00.2614.3500" name=GENERATOR></HEAD> <BODY> <DIV>Hello,</DIV> <DIV>Thanks for posting this.</DIV> <DIV>Seems like some very true facts to me.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Isaac OLEG</DIV> <BLOCKQUOTE style="BORDER-LEFT: #0000ff 2px solid; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; PADDING-LEFT: = 5px"> <DIV align=left class=OutlookMessageHeader dir=ltr>-----Message d'origine----- De : = owner-pianotech@ptg.org [mailto:owner-pianotech@ptg.org]De la part de jolly roger Envoyé : mardi 18 septembre 2001 = 07:45 À : pianotech@ptg.org Objet : Fwd: Fw: An Afghan American's = point of view </DIV> <BLOCKQUOTE cite type="cite"></BLOCKQUOTE> Some food for thought guy's. Roger <BLOCKQUOTE cite type="cite"> Seems like an impossible situation, or at least a very bloody = one.!!! Bob Ann-Marie   Dear Friends, The following was sent to me = by my friend Tamim Ansary.  Tamim is an Afghani-American = writer.  He is also one of the most brilliant people I know in this = life.  When he writes, I read.  When he talks, I listen.  Here is = his take on Afghanistan and the whole mess we are in. -Gary T. = Dear Gary, and whoever else is on this = email thread: 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 ----------------------------------------------------------------= -------------- ================== ========================== ========================== =========== </BLOCKQUOTE> </BLOCKQ= UOTE></BODY></HTML>