Message-ID: <33355664.1075839997807.JavaMail.evans@thyme> Date: Wed, 19 Sep 2001 15:26:55 -0700 (PDT) From: bill.williams@enron.com To: kate.symes@enron.com Subject: FW: Important insight into our crisis Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-From: Williams III, Bill X-To: Symes, Kate X-cc: X-bcc: X-Folder: \ExMerge - Williams III, Bill\Sent Items X-Origin: WILLIAMS-W3 X-FileName: This is relatively irrelavent but thought you might enjoy it...of course...it is made up...just like everything else forwarded on the internet none of these people actually exist... -----Original Message----- From: Gang, Lisa Sent: Wednesday, September 19, 2001 11:37 AM To: Williams III, Bill Subject: FW: Important insight into our crisis -----Original Message----- From: Drager, Kevin [mailto:KDrager@idacorpenergy.com] Sent: Tuesday, September 18, 2001 1:36 PM To: Gang, Lisa Subject: FW: Important insight into our crisis Lisa, Just wanted to send this so you could look at it soon. I'll send another e-mail later. Kevin -----Original Message----- From: Drager, Kevin Sent: Tuesday, September 18, 2001 1:59 PM To: _Scheduler; Olson, Scott Subject: FW: Important insight into our crisis -----Original Message----- From: Johnson, Robyn Sent: Tuesday, September 18, 2001 12:57 PM To: Drager, Kevin Subject: FW: Important insight into our crisis -----Original Message----- From: Jean Cheney [mailto:cheney@utahhumanities.org] Sent: Monday, September 17, 2001 2:26 PM To: Natasha Saje; Lisa Bickmore; Sandy Anderson; Charles Davidson; scottcheney@earthlink.net; Kate Cheney; sunray@alltel.net Subject: Important insight into our crisis > >-----Original Message----- > >From: TPElie@aol.com [mailto:TPElie@aol.com] > >Sent: Monday, September 17, 2001 4:51 AM > >To: SnagIt6391@aol.com > >Subject: a rare bit of intelligence on the coming war > > > > > > > >This is from an Afghani-American scholar, Tamim Ansary, whom friends of > >friends at the World Bank and in the academy respect immensely. This is his > >take on > >Afghanistan and the whole mess we are careening into, and I think it merits > >serious thought. Pass it along if you know folks who might want to ponder > >this addition to the national conversation. > >Tim > >******** > >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 > > > > > Max Harris, Executive Director > Wisconsin Humanities Council > 222 S. Bedford Street > Madison > WI 53703 > Phone: 608/262-0706 > Fax: 608/263-7970 > Email: MRHARRI1@FACSTAFF.WISC.EDU > >