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Another thoughtful post with interesting insights

>Subject: [timeless_eye_lodge] A Clear View from an American from
Afghanistan

> > A somewhat troubling perspective from someone who ought to know...
> >
> > Subject: A Clear View from an American from Afghanistan
> >
> > I've been hearing a lot of talk about "bombing Afghanistan back to
> > the Stone Age."  Ronn Owens, on KGO(Salt Lake) 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.

Many of the objections are common to any war.

In the Gulf War, the casualities of Iraqi people were catastrophic, and most
of those killed had absolutely no say in Iraq invasion of Kuwait, but to
liberate Kuwait, a war was neccessary, so these caualities were unavoidable.

This is true in many wars.  The moral choice is to let other people do stuff
to you without you fighting back, or fight back knowing that there is always
risk of innocents being sacrificed.

The Taliban took over Afganistan government by force of arms.

Perhaps Justice is served by allying with the Northern Alliance under some UN
Muslim guarantee that the outside forces will withdraw when the Taliban is
vanquished & the nation left in the hands of the Northern Alliance.

But it would be a long hard fought task.

In WW II, Alied intelligence knew exactly what the Nazis were doing, with
respect to concentration camps.  Why was bombing not directed at railroad
connections so as to slow up delivery of victims to the death camps?  I
suspect a bit of anit-semitism in the Allied leaders of the day ... let the
Nazis finish the job, then we will punish them.  The official reason was that
the death rate was astronomical all over the place, including the battlefield
& the best course of action was rapidity towards victory.

As difficult as revolution is, I think it should be easier in a nation that
is already in the Stone Age & is friiendless in the world, that inside a
modern technological state.

MacWheel99@aol.com (Alister Wm Macintyre) (Al Mac)


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