Thanks Camilla for bringing out this timely information of one who knows the
inside of Afghanistan reality .... it should be spread out to all that directly
or not may be connected with future decisions about this war, so the wiser
choices can be taken .
Best wishes ,


Camilla Flintermann wrote:

> Friends---this was sent to me, and in the service of "knowing the
> enemy" I share it with those who are interested.  Even though the
> picture is grim, it is important to know what options may or may not
> be credible--and this is an inside view.
>
> >
> >This is a commentary from Tamim Ansary, a writer
> >and columnist in San Francisco, who comes from Afghanistan. Please read it
> >and, if you are so moved, please forward
> >
> >* * * * * * * * *
> >Who is Bin Laden?
> >
> >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?

Joao Paulo - Salvador,BA,Brazil
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