-Caveat Lector- ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Tue, 18 Sep 2001 09:09:16 -0400 Dear Friends - I am forwarding this message to you all as it put our current situation in a different perspective for me. In all honesty, I wish I had the answers, but I dont..... I do what I can, you do what u can. Here is some food for thought. Blessings to us all - each according to our needs. Paige >Lark Camp is a music camp in northern California where people from all >over the world get together to teach, learn, and play music for a week.) > JoBeth > >> Lark Campers, >> >> I thought all folks that are interested in Lark Camp would want to see >> this letter. >> >> Tamim, our Afghan musician friend who teachs at Lark Camp, wrote this to >> the SF Chronicle Letters to the Editor: >> >>I've been hearing a lot of talk about "bombing Afghanistan back to the Stone >>Age." Ron 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 deeply hates the Taliban and Osama Bin Laden. My hatred >>comes from first hand experience. 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 would not 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? Unfortunately, Bin Laden does. Anyone else? >> >> In Peace, >> >> Tamim Ansary >> --------------- To unsubscribe from this list, send a blank email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/ <A HREF="http://www.ctrl.org/";>www.ctrl.org</A> DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion & informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. Substance—not soap-boxing—please! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'—with its many half-truths, mis- directions and outright frauds—is used politically by different groups with major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. That being said, CTRLgives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no credence to Holocaust denial and nazi's need not apply. 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