Article by an Afghanistan

dexter SG

To my friends,

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

I wonder why US didnt help the Afghanistans against the Taliban when thousands of them were killed. Maybe American lives are more equal than Afghanistans lives.

tripwire SG

Perhaps.... with the coming of the americans.... the sorrow of the afgans might actually comes to an end.....

OR perhaps.... the sufferings will continue...

BUT one thing is certain..... presently.... Afgans are suffering......

SO..... how worse can it get with the arrival of the americans???

IF this war should end up polarising the different religions.... it will be sad and horrendous.... YET... horrendous though it may be or may not be.... the Perpertrators of the terrorist act on WTC must not go unanswered.... least it boldens the will of the extremist and results in more WTCs around the world.....

There must come a time.... where the line must be drawn... if not today... then perhaps another day in the future..... as long as the fundamentalist islamic followers exist.

IF the man of the present time do not take up the courage and the will to end this now.... we might end up sending our childrens to the front line in times to come....

Better for me to die in the front... then to weep behind the battle lines... upon the carcass of my fallen child.... to weep upon his bones the sins i have done... to see upon his blood my ignorance of the past. Woe is me, if that day should come to past.... so let me stand and let me fight... for i would rather it stops here and now!

Shotgun SG

Clearly the US is trying very hard to avoid collateral damage. They are making full use of their special forces.

dexter SG

>>BUT one thing is certain..... presently.... Afgans are suffering......

>>SO..... how worse can it get with the arrival of the americans???

mutter...mutter..mutter..

Hey, one of your hands is already chopped off. Why dun we chop off another??

mutter...mutter..mutter..

tripwire SG

eh.... in afganistan case, its more like both hand already chopped off long ago.... so.... no more hand to chop already....

who knows.... maybe with the coming of the americans... the must give the handicapped afgans a need lift.....

gRiZZly SG

so i guess its like if u lose a needle in a haystack?? u burn n lose the whole haystack to get to the needle rather than slowly find it n prevent destruction??
is dat the RIGHT way??

Shotgun SG

Depends on how important the "needle" is.
If its a 24k gold needle, fuck the haystack.

sure_or_not? SG

in our eyes, the afghans are suffering, due to lack of food and proper amenities of living. but deep in their souls, they have God. What more can a person who believes in God (Allah) asks for, if that person can be in constant closeness to God?

that is why, outsiders, will never know what the natives of the land are really feeling about, or thinking about. The afghan who is in USA writting that article, he doesn't know what it feels to be an afghan in afghanistan, if he talks bad about the taliban, who he said gets to eat, while the rest of the people suffer, how about him? he left afghanistan, and migrate to the Us, for over 35 years, has he ever done anything to help that country?

only afghans in afghanistan know the truth of the matter, media makes us think, we know the truth, but the truth is only within those very people. The best is, we mind our own business, and help whenever possible, and not by wars certainly, by giving real help like food, money, clothes and so on.

anyway, watever it is, killings are bad, it's people who make them look justified and good. If everyone is to take an eye for an eye, the whole world will go blind. inspired by mahatma gandhi.

osama or no osama, our world has already been widespread with killings. it's only about time, we learn about such things happening, especially in our sunny island singapore. it is the reality of life, which the garmen tries hard to conceal, so we don't get to panicky and start asking questions, which have answers that would take the garmen out. well, it's ur life. u think about it, and decide on it, and live with ur decision.