The following are highlights of the Ansary letter and my comments
interspersed in italics. I apologize for having to bore or irritate some of
you now, but I feel as an American I had to reply to something so wrong.
From: jfor@onemain.com (J. Forster)
Date: Tue, 18 Sep 2001 22:34:38 EDT
The person who sent this to me said: I received this from a friend yesterday.
I cannot vouch for its veracity, but the person I obtained it from is very
astute and has kept up with the conflict prior to this tradgic event.
======================================
This letter, by Tamim Ansary, an Afghan living in the US, Please read it and
get it out to as many people as you can. thank you.
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." And I thought about these issues
specially 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 1997and have been holding the
country in bondage ever since.
The Taliban took over from the Mujahadeen who were accused of being corrupt.
The Taliban was a religious order, fanatical and ruthless in their
interpretation of Islamic law. The cooperation the Taliban has received by
the indigenous population has been overwhelming. Thanks to that support and
cooperative spirit, woman are denied basic human rights and are all but under
house arrest. Medical resources for women is nonexistent since male doctors
are not allowed to view women and the females doctors have been removed from
practice! The people there seem awash in fanaticism, mesmerized by radical
Islamic clerics.
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.
This a half truth. The fact is the people had the chance to rid themselves
of the Taliban and they did not. They were armed and they had food, but they
lacked the will. The fact is, the masses did not join with the moderate
Northern Alliance when the opportunity existed because they support the
Taliban. The Northern Alliance was almost wiped out and the stragglers
forced into exile across the rugged Afghani boarders as a result ending any
chance for a moderate Afghani government. Unfortunately, President Clinton
denied US aide to the Northern Alliance at a crucial turning point where the
Alliance was gaining the upper hand. Instead Clinton dispatched envoys to
Afghanistan and arranged for an arms embargo and a cease fire. The embargo
was one-sided for the Alliance, but the Saudi's, Iran and Iraq did the
equivalent of the Berlin Air lift with weaponry and by the time the cease
fire expired, the Taliban forces had the arms necessary to defeat the
Alliance. Note: Congressman Dana Rhorbacher-R, CA., member of the Foreign
Relations Committed released this information on C-Span 9/18/01.
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.
This is an outrage! Who says we have a plan to bomb the Afghani's back into
the stone age? Not our government! This is rhetoric to play to your
emotions folks.. it's slick, it's effective, but it's not true.
We don't do that and how could any American buy into this? History says
modern American fighting forces always place themselves at great risk to
avoid or minimize injury to any civilian population! Most recently we did
that in Desert Storm, ask any vet about the risk to their own safety they
willingly took to avoid hurting civilians and collateral damage! The writer
may have lived in the US for 35 years, but he or she certainly has a lot to
learn about America!
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.
This is where it has all been heading... can't you see? Rhetoric to break
the American will. "Analysis paralysis."
You have been had people, this writer is not your friend, this is not truth,
but a carefully crafted piece of divisive rhetoric designed to play on your
emotions.
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 entit 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 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
Of course Ansary has no solution, the purpose is gridlock. But, the soil in
which Ansary speaks is soil also tainted by religious fanaticism a 1000 years
old and spreading like a cancer. It goes well beyond the back alleys of
Baghdad or Islamabad. It is found in wealthy nations and not just among poor
people. It is gown by a culture wrapped in the "Spirit of Kerbala" and a
sworn vengeance to kill the tempters that would subvert the Islamic faith
with decadence. The "Great Satan" is now America. Remember Satan was not a
warrior, but a tempter. We (the USA and all its people) tempt with our
success and our freedoms that can allow people choices for people to live as
a saint or a sinner.
We tempt by our support of Israel' s right to exist. These are the main
reasons radical Islamic factions are united behind Usama bin Laden or the
other zealot leaders. Saudi's fund him with "protection" money as they do
other factions, but they also give willingly. Saudi's are not poor and
impoverished, unless you consider their culture impoverished of free thought
and living in the past.
No thinking American should pass this Ansary letter along and I deeply regret
it was published to the many people here on this list. It was a disservice
to America and our efforts to stay united. I have seen it passed along in
our town by well intended people and posted even on AOL, I am sick of it.
It's wrong, wrong, wrong! I
If the sender had paused to think two minutes about the real intent of this
Ansary letter, I would not be forced to write this rebuttal! Again my
apologies to the list who hate this stuff and want to focus on mil-vehs...I
understand, I hope you do too.
God Bless America - Stand United Against Terrorism
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