[Austin-ghetto-list] Fwd: On Afghanistan...
Jon Ford
jonmfordster@hotmail.com
Wed, 19 Sep 2001 18:21:29 -0700
A coEveryone I know seems to have received a copy of the letter below. A
colleague of mine showed the letter below to my friend Sedique Popol, who
was a "freedom fighter" against the Russian regime in Afghanistan in the
80s-- he killed people,blew up buildings,knew some of the Taliban
operatives, etc. (Ironic, if you fight against Russians or Palestinians you
are labeled a "freedom fighter"; if you fight against somebody on our side,
you get called a "terrorist"). Anyway, Sedique, like most Afghan refugees,
is hostile to the Taliban and Bin Laden, yet he feels the writer of the
letter is inaccurate in making the statement that the Taliban had anything
to do with the terrorism against the WTC and Penagon, because they are a
crude and backward group, poorly organized,low-tech in their weaponry,
basically just a bunch of religious fanatics on steroids. Bin Laden, of
course, is a different story, for he has a highly organized organization
operating in a great many countries outside of Afghanistan,according to a
map I saw in the paper of the location of his "cells" from Jane's.
In fact, Sedique adds, most any Afghan would know the Taliban would not be
capable of masterminding any such plot, so that raises an interesting
question-- maybe this letter is a fake or a plant-- I'm suspicious that it's
making the rounds of the Internet so quickly. We'll probably never know--
but take anything posted on the net with a grain of salt-- never assume such
articles that claim "personal knowledge" are genuine.
Jon
>From: "Wayne Johnson" <cadaobh2@brgnet.com>
>To: "Karen Willis" <kewillis@swbell.net>, <austin-ghetto-list@pairlist.net>
>Subject: RE: [Austin-ghetto-list] Fwd: On Afghanistan...
>Date: Wed, 19 Sep 2001 11:25:06 -0400
>
>Really good input from someone who knows something about Afghanistan beyond
>what the "talking heads...and their bellies" know.
>
>As stated by me elsewhere...and I don't know what the heck is going on with
>the web service these days...we need to march in with tons of food and
>medicine, not just rockets and bayonets.
>
>Wayne
> -----Original Message-----
> From: austin-ghetto-list-admin@pairlist.net
>[mailto:austin-ghetto-list-admin@pairlist.net]On Behalf Of Karen Willis
> Sent: Monday, September 17, 2001 8:19 PM
> To: austin-ghetto-list@pairlist.net
> Subject: [Austin-ghetto-list] Fwd: On Afghanistan...
>
>
> This was received from a cat-related list, but I think you all will be
>interested in the Afghani viewpoint.
> Karen
>
>
>
> Subject: A view from Afghanistan
>
> 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.
>
>
> xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>
> 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 (the US) 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
> C. Clark
>
> Jiyushinkai Aikibudo
> www.jiyushinkai.org
>
> "The fundamental delusion of mankind is
> that I am here and you are out there."
> - Yasutani Roshi
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