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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? > >Tamim Ansary ---------------------------------------------------------------------- To sign-off Parkinsn send a message to: mailto:[log in to unmask] In the body of the message put: signoff parkinsn