Message-ID: <6226199.1075852281689.JavaMail.evans@thyme> Date: Thu, 20 Sep 2001 10:35:16 -0700 (PDT) From: elizabeth.sager@enron.com To: alice.wright@enron.com, genia.fitzgerald@enron.com, travis.mccullough@enron.com, marcus.nettelton@enron.com Subject: FW: Afghani-American writer Tamim Ansary Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-From: Sager, Elizabeth X-To: Wright, Alice , Fitzgerald, Genia , McCullough, Travis , Nettelton, Marcus X-cc: X-bcc: X-Folder: \ESAGER (Non-Privileged)\Sent Items X-Origin: SAGER-E X-FileName: ESAGER (Non-Privileged).pst This was sent to me by a friend in NY - I thought it was a helpful Elizabeth Sager 713-853-6349 -----Original Message----- From: "Brock, Alex" @ENRON [mailto:IMCEANOTES-+22Brock+2C+20Alex+22+20+3Cabrock+40PoloRalphLauren+2Ecom+3E+40ENRON@ENRON.com] Sent: Wednesday, September 19, 2001 8:55 AM To: 'caroline brock'; 'cathleen summersinseattle'; 'charlie'; 'Chi Sager'; 'gail'; 'Gerry Brock'; 'george'; 'jacqueline'; Sager, Elizabeth; 'Nina'; 'sstreet'; 'willy' Subject: FW: Afghani-American writer Tamim Ansary I think so too... -----Original Message----- From: Bridget Mulvey [SMTP:bmulvey@hotmail.com] Sent: Tuesday, September 18, 2001 12:00 AM To: car@agiweb.org; Cdmulvey@aol.com; cy3k@yahoo.com; kmulvey@MANDTBANK.COM; sahuson@bsuvc.bsu.edu; olliver@nscl.msu.edu; liebert6@aol.com; HHurley5@aol.com; jen_mapes@yahoo.com; kbell64@hotmail.com; rechlin@okstate.edu; bluedvls11@yahoo.com; mgv99@geneseo.edu; gparatore@hotmail.com; MRB9610@geo.tamu.edu; husonrl@eas.slu.edu; roopastarz@yahoo.com; sjlangton@hotmail.com; michele.olsen@colorado.edu; stmulvey@MtHolyoke.edu; sjockman@netscape.net; stevedahlberg@hotmail.com; nayabird@hotmail.com; emugym@hotmail.com Subject: Fwd: Afghani-American writer Tamim Ansary Hi guys. This is really good. My friend Anjali sent this to me and, well, it's worth reading. I wish you all the best. Have a good week. -Bridget >I thought this was a very thought-provoking piece... >Anjali > >>> > 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. >-Gary T. >>> > >>> > ***** >>> > >>> > >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 > > _________________________________________________________________ Descargue GRATUITAMENTE MSN Explorer en http://explorer.msn.es/intl.asp