Message-ID: <3471338.1075841585206.JavaMail.evans@thyme> Date: Sat, 22 Sep 2001 17:38:19 -0700 (PDT) From: cburreson@hotmail.com To: cynthia.sokolowsky@mcd.com, heidi.partain@mcd.com, danny.cervantes@mcd.com, landa.carlson@mcd.com, gsolberg@enron.com, ahaugh@nortom.com, kerichampagne@hotmail.com, carrieburreson@hotmail.com Subject: Fwd: letter about Afghanistan worth reading Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-From: "Crystal Burreson" @ENRON X-To: cynthia.sokolowsky@mcd.com, heidi.partain@mcd.com, danny.cervantes@mcd.com, landa.carlson@mcd.com, gsolberg@enron.com, ahaugh@nortom.com, kerichampagne@hotmail.com, carrieburreson@hotmail.com X-cc: X-bcc: X-Folder: \ExMerge - Solberg, Geir\Deleted Items X-Origin: SOLBERG-G X-FileName: geir solberg 6-26-02.PST I'm not forming an opinion, just thought it was worth reading... >From: "Mari Hayes" >To: aparentukusa@mich.com >CC: ALaird0196@aol.com >Subject: letter about Afghanistan worth reading >Date: Sat, 22 Sep 2001 11:39:52 > > >I'm forwarding this as it expresses a lot of my sentiment, and I truly feel >any kind of major military attack will open pandora's box, or a wasp nest >if you like and the results will be disasterous. To have thousands more >innocent people die is also an act of terrorism, it IS TIME to see where >all the hate comes from and clean up our own backyard. 600,000 children >have died in Iraq because of the sanctions, Afghanistan exists in the stone >age...yes the Palestinians have committed acts of terror against the >Israeli's, but the Israeli's have also terrorized the Palestinians. YES >those that backed the crimes should be brought to justice but NOT at the >cost of a lot more innocent lives...time to use some of their own tricks >instead of going in with the heavy artillery, which kills indiscriminately. > >Hello all, I thought you might want to read this obviously heartfelt >letter that was forwarded to me from an American that grew up in >Afghanistan. I think the perspective is an interesting one and perhaps one >that few of us have access to. >Anne Sofia > >Dear Friends, Yesterday I heard a lot of talk about "bombing Afghanistan >back to the Stone Age." Ronn Owens, on KGO Talk Radio 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," and he >asked, "What else can we do? What is your suggestion?" Minutes later I >heard a TV pundit discussing whether we "have the belly to do what must be >done." > >I thought about these issues 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 been going on over there. So I want to share a few >thoughts with anyone who will listen. > >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 fervently wish to see those monsters punished. > >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 captured Afghanistan in 1997 and have been holding the country in >bondage ever since. Bin Laden is a political criminal with a master >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 love for someone to eliminate the Taliban and >clear out the rats nest of international thugs holed up in their >country. I guarantee it. > >Some say, if that's the case, why don't the Afghans rise up and >overthrow the Taliban themselves? The answer is, they're starved, >exhausted, damaged, and incapacitated. A few years ago, the United >Nations estimated that there are 500,000 disabled orphans in >Afghanistan--a country with no economy, no food. Millions of Afghans >are widows of the approximately two million men killed during the war with >the Soviets. And the Taliban has been executing these women for being women >and have buried some of their opponents alive in mass graves. The soil of >Afghanistan is littered with land mines and almost all the farms have been >destroyed . The Afghan people have tried to overthrow the Taliban. They >haven't been able to. > >We come now to the question of bombing Afghanistan back to the Stone >Age. Trouble with that scheme is, it's already been done. The Soviets >took care of it . 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? There >is no infrastructure. Cut them off from medicine and health care? Too late. >Someone already did all that. > >New bombs would only land in 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. (They have already, I hear.) 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 >be making common cause with the Taliban--by raping once again the people >they've been raping all this time > >So what else 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. I think that when people speak of "having the belly to do what >needs to be done" many of them are thinking in terms of having the >belly to kill as many as needed. They are thinking about overcoming moral >qualms about killing innocent people. But it's the belly to die not kill >that's actually on the table. Americans will die in a land war to get Bin >Laden. 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. 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. >The invasion approach is a flirtation with global war between Islam and the >West. > >And that is Bin Laden's program. That's exactly what he wants and why >he did this thing. Read his speeches and statements. It's all right there. >AT the moment, of course, "Islam" as such does not exist. There are Muslims >and there are Muslim countries, but no such political entity as Islam. Bin >Laden believes that if he can get a war started, he can constitute this >entity and he'd be running it. 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 Muslim lands, that's a billion people with nothing left to >lose, even better from Bin Laden's point of view. He's probably wrong about >winning, in the end the west would probably overcome--whatever that would >mean in such a war; but the war would last for years and millions would >die, not just theirs but ours. Who has the belly for that? Bin Laden yes, >but anyone else? > >I don't have a solution. But I do believe that suffering and poverty >are the soil in which terrorism grows. Bin Laden and his cohorts want to >bait us into creating more such soil, so they and their kind can >flourish. We can't let him do that. That's my humble opinion. > >Tamim Ansary >> >> > > >> >> > >> >> > >> >> > _________________________________________________________________ >> >> > Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at >> >http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp >> >> > >> >> > >> >> >> > >> > >> > >> > _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp