Attention: TDR Forum Junkies 
Had a friend email this to me, it's pretty interesting. It's not gung ho go USA, but I think that it explains the current situation more realistically than any other commentary I've seen or read.
>
> Tamim is an Afghani-American writer. He is also one of the most brilliant
> people I know in this life. When he writes, I read. When he talks, I
> listen. Here is his take on Afghanistan and the whole mess we are in.
> -GaryT.
>
>
> Dear Gary and whoever else is on this email thread:
>
> I've been hearing a lot of talk about "bombing Afghanistan
> back to the Stone Age. " RonnOwens, on KGOTalk 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. 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?
>
> Tamim Ansary
>
>
> Tamim is an Afghani-American writer. He is also one of the most brilliant
> people I know in this life. When he writes, I read. When he talks, I
> listen. Here is his take on Afghanistan and the whole mess we are in.
> -GaryT.
>
>
> Dear Gary and whoever else is on this email thread:
>
> I've been hearing a lot of talk about "bombing Afghanistan
> back to the Stone Age. " RonnOwens, on KGOTalk 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. 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?
>
> Tamim Ansary
>
