Ric wrote:
>
i'm not calling for pacifism. i'm not suggesting we
turn the other cheek. i'm saying i want proof. and until i see it, i am
not
going to sit from my cozy apartment with a view, sipping my martini and
calling for others to go out to die and kill people every bit as innocent as
the ones who have died already, so i can feel vindicated and avenged. when
i
see that proof, then we can talk.
Ric, not only is this personal attack gratuitous and egregiously
mean-spirited, it's also unfair for a couple of other reasons. Kakki lives
right in the middle of a major American city that is much, much, much more
likely to be a terrorist target than, say, Swampscott, MA or Victoria, B.C.
I doubt that anyone in Los Angeles is feeling cozy right now. She's also
said on the record that if she were younger she'd be among the first to
enlist. I believe her absolutely, because I feel the same way myself.
Having said that, I would have agreed with everything else you said if I'd
read your post on September 10. Now, I'm reminded - chillingly - of that
famous quote from a survivor of the Third Reich: "When they came for the
Jews, I didn't intervene because I wasn't a Jew; When they came for the
Catholics, I didn't intervene because I wasn't a Catholic; When they came
for the gypsies, I didn't intervene because I wasn't a gypsy; When they came
for me, there was nobody left to intervene." (This has been quoted from
memory; it isn't accurate, but you get the point.) I shudder to think what
the world might be like today if North Americans hadn't responded to what
was, in the 1930s, a European crisis.
We could all argue about American foreign policies - and I have yet to meet
an American who isn't willing to do just that - but the fact, as I see it,
is that the US did NOT invite or deserve this attack. Yet, aside from a few
extremists, NO ONE is advocating a retaliation so hasty that innocent
civilians anywhere are killed. Even if the US and its allies - which now
include, at least diplomatically, just about everybody - took a pacifist,
turn-the-other-cheek approach, it would be naive to think that someone like
Osama bin Laden would be moved by this. His own stated objective stops at
nothing short of the destruction of the US and its allies.
As for proof, it's a different world now, as our friends in New York and
Washington, D.C. know only too well. One of the freedoms we may now have to
sacrifice to security will almost certainly be access to information. The US
government may well have enough to indict bin Laden, and they may have good
reason not to allow this information to be made public.
Ric, we really part ways on this issue when it comes to the Taliban's demand
for proof of bin Laden's involvement. It strikes me as utterly disingenuous,
never more so than when I read the article you yourself sent to the list
from Tamil, a San Francisco-based writer and journalist who was born in
Afghanistan. Here is an excerpt:
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.
This writer asks that the innocent people of Afghanistan won't be unfairly
victimized in a war they are already casualties of. The Northern Alliance,
while it controls less than 10% of the country, is still recognized by the
UN and most of the world as Afghanistan's true government: I'm sure that
President Bush is all too aware of this. But you don't have to read between
the lines to realize that Tamil is also desperate for someone, anyone, to
free his country's citizens from what must be unspeakable oppression. If
Tamil's words - and bin Laden's - don't constitute proof, they (in addition
to other data) certainly justify bin Laden's extradition to the US. The
Taliban must realize that this is NOT our decision. It is their decision.
Despite seeing and trying to digest so many images on TV, nothing has
brought the enormity of this crisis to me more than the reports from the
front line; from Patrick, Kay, Debra, and others. Reading about Kakki's
two-hour phone conversation only confirmed a suspicion that I've been
harboring but haven't wanted to confront: it's way, way worse than we
thought.
Love to all,
Roberto
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