Fw: An Afghan American's point of view

[Isaac OLEG SIMANOT]

This is a multi-part message in MIME format.

---------------------- multipart/alternative attachment
Hello,
Thanks for posting this.
Seems like some very true facts to me.


Isaac OLEG
  -----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



  Some food for thought guy's.
  Roger




    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




    ------------------------------------------------------------------------
------


============================================================================
==





---------------------- multipart/alternative attachment
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: https://www.moypiano.com/ptg/pianotech.php/attachments/20/88/ee/c2/attachment.htm

---------------------- multipart/alternative attachment--