When the words 'at war' are used, the question that all are now asking is
'with whom?'
I found this piece an especially useful contribution to thinking about that
question.
Tamim, a writer and columnist in San Francisco is originally from
Afghanistan. In light of Tuesdays tragedy and the unthinkable idea of what
is yet to come, here are her thoughts for you to ponder.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
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 deeply hates the Taliban and Osama Bin Laden. My hatred
comes from first hand experience. 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 would not 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? Unfortunately, Bin Laden does. Anyone else?
In Peace, Tamim Ansary
Phillip Capper,
Centre for Research on Work, Education and Business Ltd. (WEB Research),
Level 9
142 Featherston Street
(PO Box 2855)
WELLINGTON
New Zealand
Ph: +64 4 499 8140
Fx: +64 4 499 8395
Mb: +64 021 519 741
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