"The Afghan people 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."
By Tamim Ansary, September 14, 2001.
I've been hearing a lot of talk about "bombing Afghanistan back to the Stone Age." Ronn Owens, on San Francisco's KGO Talk Radio, conceded today 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 in the United States 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 bin 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 healthcare? 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?
Afghanistan, the war the world forgot
By Colin Brown and Kim Sengupta
25 May 2004
'We've got to make sure this time that we do it properly'
Tony Blair, 5 April, 2002
'It's a basket case. It's a forgotten country'
Eric Illsley, Labour member of Foreign Affairs Select Committee, yesterday
Three years after the overthrow of the Taliban and George Bush's declaration of victory in the first conflict in the war on terror, Afghanistan is a nation on the edge of anarchy.
A devastating indictment of the Allies' failure to help reconstruct the country in the wake of the 2001 conflict is to be delivered in a parliamentary report.
The Independent has learnt that an all-party group of MPs from the Foreign Affairs Committee has returned from a visit to the country shocked and alarmed by what they witnessed. They warn that urgent action must be taken to save Afghanistan from plunging further into chaos because of Western neglect.
As President Bush and Tony Blair unveil their plans today for the future of Iraq through the draft of a new United Nations resolution, the MPs warn that the mistakes of Afghanistan could be repeated with similar tragic consequences in Iraq.
Eric Ilsley, a Labour member of the committee, said: "Afghanistan is a basket case. It's a forgotten country." Shortly after the conflict, Mr Blair pledged to the Afghan people: "This time we will not walk away from you", as the United States and Britain had been accused of doing following the mujahedin's war against the Soviet Union.
But MPs and international aid agencies say that is, in effect, what has happened. With the focus of Washington and London firmly on Iraq, the situation in Afghanistan has been allowed to unravel. The remaining infrastructure is shattered, opium production is rocketing, and the Taliban and warlords are back in control of large areas.
The committee, chaired by Labour MP Donald Anderson, will charge in their report, due out in July, that Nato and the West failed to fulfil their promise to restore order and democracy to Afghanistan.
They will urge Mr Blair to press for Nato countries to fulfil their commitments in Afghanistan at the organisation's summit in Istanbul at the end of June. The committee believes Nato countries are holding back troops from Afghanistan because they may be needed in Iraq.
The MPs' assessment follows similar warnings by humanitarian organisations. Earlier this month, a report by Christian Aid described how aid efforts were in jeopardy because of Western inaction.
With Nato forces suffering from a shortage of manpower and materials and the Americans concentrating on hunting Osama bin Laden, Western organisations and diplomats, including the British ambassador, Rosalind Marsden, are dependent on private security firms for protection. Mr Ilsley said: "It's very worrying. We arrived in Kabul and found our ambassador has a private security firm acting as her bodyguards who look like the Men in Black. They were in civilian clothes and armed to the teeth."
The security situation was so fraught that the committee reported to the Foreign Office that they felt several MPs, including the former minister Gisela Stuart, were in danger during a demonstration in Kabul.
The Nato commander in Afganistan, Major General Rick Hillier of the Canadian Army, told the visiting MPs that he had asked for 10 helicopters for his force of more than a thousand but not a single aircraft had been delivered.
John Stanley, a former Conservative defence minister, said: "We were told in no uncertain terms by the top Nato general that the situation in delivering Nato expansion in Afghanistan is very disturbing indeed."
Hamid Karzai, President of the interim Afghan government, praised the role of British troops in getting warlords to disarm in his meeting with the parliamentary delegation. Afghan officials say he is under pressure from the US to hold elections in September, prior to the American presidential elections in November, so that President George Bush can show how democracy has been successfully nurtured in the country.
However, the Afghan elections, originally scheduled for June, have already been postponed once due to the unsafe security situation. The UN reports that attacks by the Taliban have led to only 1.6 million out of the 10.5 million eligible electors being registered.
The Liberal Democrat MP David Chidgey added: "The UK troops are doing a wonderful job but we found only 30 looking after an area the size of Scotland. It's a disgrace. Allowing the Afghan operation to remain a forgotten theatre means warlords, funded by drugs profits, will continue to flourish."
Taliban attacks on aid workers has led to many humanitarian projects being abandoned.
And to think, if it wasn't Bush and Blair, Afghanistan would be a terrorist haven right now under complete control of Al-Queda. I'm glad Bush and Blair didn't forget it as the rest of the world did. Thanks for pointing that out H@ts. I may have misjudged you after all.
So...........Bush lied about WMD's in Iraq?? http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/middle_east/july-dec98/clinton_12-16.html
I use logic said this in post #3 : And to think, if it wasn't Bush and Blair, Afghanistan would be a terrorist haven right now under complete control of Al-Queda. I'm glad Bush and Blair didn't forget it as the rest of the world did. Thanks for pointing that out H@ts. I may have misjudged you after all.
Afghanistan has been forgotten for the second time!
Afghanistan is "'a basket case. It's a forgotten country'"
"The remaining infrastructure is shattered, opium production is rocketing, and the Taliban and warlords are back in control of large areas."
It was from the British newspaper - the Independant, which has certainly taken an anti Iraq war stance. This isn't just Americas's problem, this is everyone's problem. There was wide-spread support for the action in Afghanistan. If it is as bad as these British ministers say (and the report is not out until July) then it is as MP David Chidgey said - a disgrace. Poverty and lawlessness were for years the perfect breeding ground for terrorists in Afghanistan. Seems like we're learning nothing.
USA1 said this in post #9 : The only people who forgot this War are the Democrats and left wing knuckleheads who spend all their time campaining and making up conspiracies.
Sound familiar?
Sounds familiar? The US military charged with catching Bin Laden where removed from Afghanistan when they were close to catching him and sent to Iraq to help out with the preperation for the Iraq invasion/war/occupation, much to their annoyance. And guess what - Bin Laden got away! Now who were you saying forgot about Afgahistan. What the hell the left have got to do with this only USA1 knows. Maybe he needs reminding - it's the far-right that are in charge of America right now.
USA1 said this in post #12 : I'm sure this will al be cleared up right before November. Thank God.
You're actually suggesting Bush will produce Bin Laden just before the election?? I take this to mean that you think either someone already has him or someone is certain where he is and can be caught. Even I think that this is too horrendously cynical to be true and would just as likely backfire if people suspect this had been done.
I think they will get him before the election. I don't think they have him or they would have announced it already, nobody would purposely wait to produce him.
"Those who know nothing of Islam pretend that Islam counsels against war. Those who say this are witless." ~Ayatollah Khomeini
USA1 said this in post #14 : I think they will get him before the election. I don't think they have him or they would have announced it already, nobody would purposely wait to produce him.
Unless all the kings' horses and all the kings' men can't find this man (financed by billions and billions and the top killing brains), then he won't appear. My money is on the bunny rabbit theory around elephant convention time.
05-25-2004 07:05 AM
