Forwarded for Dean Whittaker who is having problems posting ...
Dear folks,
A couple of pieces from SojoMail, which I reckon are worth throwing into our
conversations about America's response to the American attacks and the plight of
Afghan
refugees.
Where Ansary uses the word 'belly' I think I'd substitute the word 'guts' or
maybe even 'ticker'.
SojoMail is an American Christian email service associated with Sojourners
Magazine. More info at :
http://www.sojo.net/sojomail/index.cfm.
Dean
________________________________________________________--
Plea from an Afghan opponent of bin Laden
The author of the following perspective, Tamim
Ansary, is a writer of marvelous children's and
educational books. He is a U.S. citizen who moved
to the U.S. from Afghanistan in 1966 - and he is
a strong opponent of Osama bin Laden.
September 14, 2001
Dear Friends:
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 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 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?
___________________________________________
Let freedom ring
by David Batstone
God gave human beings the free will to make
choices - good ones and bad ones - for true
love can only spring from freedom. That is a basic
belief of all the Abrahamic religions. It was
a big gamble, and some days we wonder whether
God should not have programmed the human software
with far more limits. But look what would be
diminished: the beauty of human creativity,
relationship, self-discipline, and giving.
Abstract theological musings? Perhaps. Yet the
concept takes on a very tangible meaning as we
Americans choose our destiny in response to the
events of September 11. From the highest reaches
of government on down we heard calls this past
weekend for greater restrictions on our freedoms
as citizens. We are being warned that "life will
never be the same again," and we can't expect to
continue to live in a free environment that makes
us vulnerable to terrorist attacks.
I grant you, if we put tight restrictions
on the freedom of assembly we might be more
successful in rooting out terrorist cell groups.
If we draw the gates shut on immigration and
foreign visitors, we might reduce the likelihood
of enemy intrusion from the likes of bin Laden.
If we limit free speech and publication we might
more closely control the flow of ideas that
may be subversive to our "American way of life."
If we eliminate civil liberties that protect
personal privacy and the rights of ethnic groups
against prejudicial monitoring we might more
quickly identify dangerous rogues.
Add it all up, and it sounds exactly like the
kind of authoritarianism and anti-democratic
structures most Americans say they are willing
to die fighting against. If we make those
choices, we will have lost the war even as we
prepare for battle. I would rather gamble on
freedom then live as a slave to our fears. At
stake is the beauty of life itself.
__________________________________________________________
Where do journalists go to get the latest news,
resources, and follow-up on the September 11 attack?
Check out:
http://www.mediamap.com/Sept11.asp
--------------
Where do you go for good background on Islam,
both in the United States and globally?
Check out:
http://islamicity.com
-------------
Who is bin Laden and what is his network?
Check out:
http://slate.msn.com/Assessment/01-09-13/SideB01.asp
http://abc.net.au/4corners/
http://www.infoplease.com/spot/osamabinladen.html
http://www.emergency.com/bladen98.htm
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