Re: An Afghan Perspective ... First Victims

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: : : Bombing back to the stone age is an emotional response.  Nobody seriously condones that.  Our leaders certainly don't.  

: : : I don't think you can connect the two statements.  We do need to be able to have the stomach for what needs to be done - in other words, the resolve, the patience to take it sensibly one step at a time.

: : : I see in online news that the Taliban has made their decision: tell Bin Laden to leave Afghanistan.  If they carry through with that, then he is on the run.  Other nations won't want to face the possibility of war with us either.  Safe havens for these people will dry up.  They will be exposed.  That was the point.
: : : Sometimes thugs like the Taliban and others won't do the right thing unless it is clear that it will cost them more than you.

: : : Also, I see that the US has been the biggest contributor to food relief in Afghanistan even now.  It was one of the contradictions the media aired:  Bin Laden attacks us and here we are feeding those starving people you mentioned.  In general, the American heart is good.  Statements like "bomb them back to the stone age" are just simplistic emotional gut responses like "go to hell".  I don't determine if you go to hell - God does.  And the idiots who say bomb them back to the stone age don't determine the response we make - our leaders and Congress do.

: : : We do need to have the fortitude to continue with a world wide program of taking the ratholes away from these terrorists, and making them anathema to the entire world so they are not supported and are always on the run.  That is the kind of stomach we need.  No sensible person thinks the solution is to bomb the populace.  Give our leaders and military credit for having the same common sense we do.

: : : Good to hear from you though.  It was a good perspective.

: : 
: : I don't think the 'bomb to the stone age' reaction has any governmental  weight at all but it does reflect a lack of awareness of Afghanistan's current status & its more recent history. (As well as our own folly of walking away once the Afghans defeated the Soviet Union.) The author of that letter took the opportunity to attempt to explain some basic realities that should be known, particularly to Americans.

: : The will to do the job, as I mean it, means not the will to decimate the Afghan population but the resolve to accept the enormity of the objective, the inevitable casualties (American, British, etc. troops as well as civilian populations), the lengthy time required to see the end, & the eruption of some very frightening retaliations. One can not overemphasize the complexities of the middle east & the egg shell balancing of diplomacy.

: : Yes, Americans basically have a good heart & it will be called upon again & again. The food relief, incidentally, is one of the things bin Laden resents seeing, just as he resented the U.S. military presence in Saudi Arabia. He sees humanitarian aid by the western nations as a great insult & a sign of weakness. I give you Somalia. Yes, he said the U.S. is weak, a "paper tiger."
: : Our previous lack of will to respond 'proved' this to him & those who follow him. He boasted how weak the "great super power" really was & our lack of will empowered the terrorist will to attack more boldly & more terribly. 

: : Regarding the Taliban; there is no separating the rogue Taliban from the Al Qaeda or from bin Laden. They are the same. The empty words are nothing more. Osama bin Laden isn't on the run. He's still protected. Incidentally, the majority of the Taliban members are Pakistani, not Afghan. They didn't do the right thing. They will never do the right thing.

: : The key word, Bill, was anathema. That is the objective. 

: : E

: 
: Good points! Elaine I am SO GLAD you posted this perspective, she is so spot on in her description of today's Afghanistan. To hear folks in the media talk about our "War with Afghanistan" is such a misnomer. We will be at war with the Taliban, Al Qaeda, other fundamentalist terror groups, and bin Laden, NOT Afghanistan. There are basically no Afghan men left. Only a miniscule amount of aid has been allowed in and those that are allowed in to deliver it have done so under extremely tenuous circumstances, not knowing if they would make a mistake and be detained or murdered.  

: I've probably mentioned this before, but my boss, a prince among men, is from Afghanistan and has been telling us for 5 years or more about bin Laden, has been going to Washington every chance he gets to talk to those that will listen, been active in Amnesty International, Physician's for Human Rights, working to exhaustion frequently to help his fellow countrymen out of an oppression that is truly likened to the Nazi concentration camps. Mavis Leno, Jay's wife, also is to be given credit for trying to assist the Afghan women held hostage in their own country. SO MANY of their words have fallen on deaf ears, but I do believe that our government and military know what they face. It is just such a shame that it took a tragedy of a magnitude this country has never witnessed to wake them up to the possibilities of this Saudi ex-patriot. I simply DO NOT believe that the Taliban has taken away the communications means from bin Laden. Covert communications and technology are this man's forte. A couple of years ago I did a paper on e-commerce and privacy and security issues of internet transfer of funds. The leaders at that time of encryption technology were the Saudis. The thing I find so frightening about this whole chain of events is that they have operated so openly in own borders. These are NOT stupid people, what other ground work have they laid, for bin Laden's ultimate goal IS a Holy War and he's been planning for years! We can only hope the 600+ stinger missiles that remained in Afghanistan after the war with Russia are mostly inactive and cannot be used against our ground troops as they move in. Stinger missiles put into that country by the US, then when the war ended with Russia, the US SOLD the stinger missiles to the Taliban for the price of ONE stinger missile, thinking this government was better than a Soviet one. Hmmmm, wonder where they got the money?

: Sorry for the rambling, thanks Elaine and Bill for your perspectives too!!

: Di


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