I just received this from a client. It is an interesting perspective of what we face...

I think this shows how little the American public really knows on the
subject of Afghanistan.......
>
> Food for thought.
>
> Subject: Another opinion
>
>
> Tamim is an Afghani-American writer.
>
> 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, 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 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 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. 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?
>
> Tamim Ansary
>