Help: Letter from an Afgan

Subject: Letter from an Afgan
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 20 Sep 01 - 10:04 AM

I just got this from my son. I don't know if it is true. I'm not quite sure what to make of it. But I do feel it could be important. Apologies if it has already been posted - please delete dup. thread if so.

Below is an article written by an Afghan citizen - some of you will already be aware of the actual situation in Afghanistan, but others might not:

"Dear Friends:

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 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 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 1997 and have been holding the country in bondage ever since. 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. 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.

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.

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 entity 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 a 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"

Subject: RE: Help: Letter from an Afgan
From: Fiolar
Date: 20 Sep 01 - 10:24 AM

A very moving document. Unfortunately the feeling of many in Pakistan and Afghanistan is that if the country is invaded, they will join the Taliban in resisting the "invaders" whom they will see as the villains. The people of occupied Europe with a few exceptions welcomed the allied army in 1944/45. The news coming out of Afghanistan is that the Taliban will fight to the last man. However my guess is, that will not be Bin Laden who will have slipped away to safety. I think that this time the war will be like nothing in the past but will be long, dirty and bloody with the kamikazes of the WWII looking like a tea party in comparison.

Subject: RE: Help: Letter from an Afgan
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 20 Sep 01 - 11:08 AM

I am sure you are right about the real criminals fleeing, Fiolar (twice in one week - what is the world coming to!) I'm not so sure about other Islamic peoples joining the Taliban.

The news coming out of Pakistan shows emotive pictures of students burning American flags. On TV the other day however Imran Khan (I remember when he just played cricket!) was portraying the very opposite - A man commited to Islam and Pakistan but willing to reason and behave in a civilised manner. I suspect the truth lies somewhere between the two extremes like it does in our countries.

Likewise with the Taliban. The extremists will support them. The moderates will not. The civil war will continue. The US will support the moderates. Someone else will support the Taliban and we will see history repeating itself for the umpteenth time in our lifespan.

We really need to know the truth. I, for one, do not know if CNN and ITV show the truth or if the above document does. Like I said before. I guess it will be somewhere in between.

In the meanwhile let us not be led by the vendors of sensationalist news bulletins. Let us believe that, like us, most of the people of Islam are good, Allah-fearing folks. Let us believe that the people that commited these despicable acts are evil criminals who do not deserve to be spoken of in the same breath as ordinary people, whatever their faith.

Peace

Dave the Gnome

Subject: RE: Help: Letter from an Afgan
From: Fiolar
Date: 20 Sep 01 - 01:16 PM

Dave. I believe there is an Arabic saying "The enemy of my enemy is my friend." This would funnily enough relate to Iran where I understand that the majority of the population is Shi'ite Muslim whereas the Taliban are Sunni and I believe the two hate each other. It would be a turn around for the books if the US found itself fighting alongside those that have been demonised over the last decade or so. Incidentally there was a very good article in I think a recent Observer magazine describing the ongoing war the Iranians are waging against the drug runners from Afghanistan. If they ever stop, the West would soon be up to its collective eyeballs in the bad stuff. Cheers.

Subject: RE: Help: Letter from an Afgan
From: wysiwyg
Date: 20 Sep 01 - 01:28 PM

Thank you for sharing this.

~S~

Subject: RE: Help: Letter from an Afgan
From: Charley Noble
Date: 21 Sep 01 - 09:48 AM

The original post above has been circulating all over, and has been posted here before as well. I am curious whether the author has any further thoughts.

Subject: RE: Help: Letter from an Afgan
From: Fortunato
Date: 21 Sep 01 - 10:26 AM

Dave I hadn't seen this, thank you.

Subject: RE: Help: Letter from an Afgan
From: Gervase
Date: 21 Sep 01 - 10:39 AM

For another perspective on the doggedness and courage of the Afghans, and the futility of trying to engage them on their own ground, have a look at this. Sobering reading.

Subject: RE: Help: Letter from an Afgan
From: Fortunato
Date: 21 Sep 01 - 10:55 AM

Greetings Gervase. I hope you're well.
Sobering reading, yes, and a reminder that the history of Afganistan and the region should have warned us all. The seeds of hatred have long been sown, and bear bitter fruit still.

Susette and the boys and I are well. All the best. Chance

Subject: RE: Help: Letter from an Afgan
From: Nemesis
Date: 21 Sep 01 - 11:33 AM

I read this article in either the Daily Telegraph or the Observer (UK) this week - I've read so much that my head's spinning - but I have kept every paper since last Tueday week and if anyone wants further info on this article I will check back through the papers.

Cheers, Hille

Subject: RE: Help: Letter from an Afgan
From: Gervase
Date: 22 Sep 01 - 02:34 PM

Chance,
Keeping just fine at the moment, though worried a tad at being right next to the Kuwaiti embassy.
I trust that you and Susette keep safe and prosper in the worrying times ahead - and, whatever my misgivings about 'Infinite Justice', God bless all American Mudcatters (even the Republicans, honest!)/

Subject: RE: Help: Letter from an Afgan
From: Abby Sale
Date: 23 Sep 01 - 12:14 PM

It is a good article, yes, and several people have e-mailed it to me in the past week. But has anyone actually verivied that it's by a real Afgan-American writer & not a hoax?

Subject: RE: Help: Letter from an Afgan
From: Peter Kasin
Date: 23 Sep 01 - 02:39 PM

Yes, it's real. Tamin is an Afghani folk musician who lives in California, and gives workshops at a folk music camp here every summer. I saw him at a Middle Eastern session when I attended camp in 1997. He also played for one of the dance lessons - a fine musician and a warm, fun guy. This piece originally appeared as a letter to the editor in the San Francisco Chronicle, and soon after made the e mail rounds among the campers (about 400 people attend this camp) and their friends.

-chanteyranger

Subject: RE: Help: Letter from an Afgan
From: Dani
Date: 23 Sep 01 - 04:24 PM

I heard this on NPR last Thursday (I think it was) night. I believe it was read by the author.

Dani

Subject: RE: Help: Letter from an Afgan
From: CapriUni
Date: 23 Sep 01 - 08:23 PM

Dani, did you hear this letter on "all things Considered"? Because NPR has a website, with each of segments of the show in real audio, so you can listen again.

I might just check it out...

Subject: RE: Help: Letter from an Afgan
From: Haruo
Date: 24 Sep 01 - 01:09 AM

If you want to read it in Esperanto, I have a bilingual version on my website here. However I note that my version is missing a couple of paragraphs of the version above. I think I'll add them tomorrow.

Liland