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  #1  
Old 09-17-2001, 06:54 PM
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OT - An Afghani Perspective

I thought this was an interesting perspective on the current state of affairs in the world...

http://bbs.msnbc.com/bbs/msnbc-walls...s/kr/44392.asp

VK
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Old 09-17-2001, 07:14 PM
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Re: OT - An Afghani Perspective

Quote:
Originally posted by vkykam
I thought this was an interesting perspective on the current state of affairs in the world...

http://bbs.msnbc.com/bbs/msnbc-walls...s/kr/44392.asp

VK

How true!

Lwin
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Old 09-17-2001, 07:31 PM
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Article

Excellent.

In one of my posts on the other thread, I said something to the effect that if we went into this thing with strong-arm tactics and ended up killing innocent people, not only would it be wrong, but we would lose the moral high ground and most of the support we have at the moment. We must separate the doers of this dreadful act, and those who sheltered them, from the suffering masses that surround them. That is part of the protection these people have created for themselves...similar to Saddam's "human shields"....and a major dilemma for us to figure out.
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Old 09-17-2001, 09:25 PM
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My fear is that everyone gets worked up into a frenzy in the speculation. I don't give a rip what the journalists say (I was one), they don't know jack sh!t. I don't care what the pundits say. They don't know either. We can speculate, work ourselves into a froth and worry and fear and wring our hands -- we don't know what's going to happen. Let's wait and see. And pray (or whatever one does) that the "right thing" is done.
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Old 09-17-2001, 09:31 PM
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Re: Article

Quote:
Originally posted by SVXphile
Excellent.

In one of my posts on the other thread, I said something to the effect that if we went into this thing with strong-arm tactics and ended up killing innocent people, not only would it be wrong, but we would lose the moral high ground and most of the support we have at the moment. We must separate the doers of this dreadful act, and those who sheltered them, from the suffering masses that surround them. That is part of the protection these people have created for themselves...similar to Saddam's "human shields"....and a major dilemma for us to figure out.
Don

The history behind a lot of this is so crazy. "The tangled web we weave" so to speak. When the Shah was in power in Iran, millions of dollars in US aid was funneled into that country to help them build their military machine to protect against Iraq. Once the Shah was deposed and Iyatolla took over, we started pouring money into Iraq to help them build their machine for the possible destruction of Iran -- Instead, they turned it on the Kuwaitis. When Russia invaded Afghanistan, US dollars went into to building "Unbombable" bunkers -- the ones Bin Laden is likely hiding in today. It seems that, in some instances, we are funding our own destruction.
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Old 09-17-2001, 10:37 PM
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Re: Re: Article

Quote:
Originally posted by Aredubjay



The history behind a lot of this is so crazy. "The tangled web we weave" so to speak. When the Shah was in power in Iran, millions of dollars in US aid was funneled into that country to help them build their military machine to protect against Iraq. Once the Shah was deposed and Iyatolla took over, we started pouring money into Iraq to help them build their machine for the possible destruction of Iran -- Instead, they turned it on the Kuwaitis. When Russia invaded Afghanistan, US dollars went into to building "Unbombable" bunkers -- the ones Bin Laden is likely hiding in today. It seems that, in some instances, we are funding our own destruction.
I agree with you Randy.

US has been and will be funding people around the world for their cause (or for security of democracy). Sometimes it makes sense. I am certain that drug cartels in the South America is also funded by the US. Wasn't it the US that put Fidel there in Cuba in the first place.

However if it was not for that funding, the immediate danger and security of region would be compromised and I (unfortunately) agree with the US funding at those moments. Who knew these people would bite the hands of people that fed them food when they were young.

I might be mistaken but a couple of days ago, I saw the former CIA guy for Pakistan saying something along the lines of US supplying arms for Osama a couple of years back. And Colin did admit that they did supply arms to Iraq and Iran and Afghanistan.

I am hoping and praying with all my might that nothing happens till end of the month. I have people I care about deeply in former Russia (somewhere in the afghan regions) at the moment.

Lwin
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  #7  
Old 09-17-2001, 11:36 PM
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OT- An afghani Perspective

It's both worse and better than you think. We didn't build bunkers in Afghanistan ( if Bin Laden were hiding in a bunker, finding him would be easy). We, and volunteers from Soldier of Fortune magazine, trained Bin Laden and the rest of the Mujahadeen to be great guerilla fighters. Taught them all they needed to know in order to chew up a somewhat modern military machine that was fighting the wrong way for the territory they were fighting in and the people they were fighting. Booted the Russians and their army loaded with unwilling two year
conscripts right on out of the country. Boy, did we do a good job. Too good.

BTW, Lwin, we backed Battista in Cuba. Fidel was a communist through and through. That's
why we backed Battista, even though he was worthless.

Fortunately, we are not the Russians. We don't fight like them either.

Last edited by cmoreloc13; 09-17-2001 at 11:43 PM.
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  #8  
Old 09-18-2001, 08:44 AM
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Another Afghani Perspective

Here's a copy of something I received on an e-mail list. It's worth considering.

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
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  #9  
Old 09-18-2001, 03:38 PM
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Afghanistan

Thanks Bill

This is exactly what I fear. These people need rehabilitation, not annihilation.

The rats will survive, the innocent will suffer, again. Defeating these thugs who use human shields will require cunning and cleverness and unfortunately a lot of time. We can do it though.

Joe
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Old 09-18-2001, 07:25 PM
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Our own worst enemy?

<we are funding our own destruction>

We have been down this path before in our history, and it seems to be a lesson we are unwilling to learn.

Reading the last few excellent posts, reminded me of some thoughts I have slowly developed over the years. The foreign policy of our country, as expressed in everything from CIA moves to seat or unseat a foreign dictator, to selling arms and training to anyone as long as they weren't Communist, has operated on a moral level that is not consistent with the beliefs and attitudes of the majority of Americans. As a result, many citizens of poor foreign countries do not see the side of America that we see, or that we think that THEY should be seeing. They see an "ugly" America, willing to go to almost any extent to bully, strong arm, and yes even kill, to continue our power and control. From our side, we said that since we were facing a huge Communist threat everywhere, that those actions were unfortunately necessary. The problem is, many in the third world saw the United States as the power and the arms behind the tyrant dictator that oppressed their people, and Communism as the movement OF the people to end that domination. We sided with the most powerful individual/party/group and armed them to the teeth, just as long as they were "pledged to fight Communism!"
Of course if a few thousand innocent lives get destroyed in the process, well that is the price someone had to pay to stop the Red menace. (Central and South America/Africa/Southeast Asia...etc. etc.)

But what else could we do? Fairly easy really. You beat the Kremlin at its own game....you support the PEOPLE! Arm and train them and they will be a thorn under the Soviet saddle and make the world safe for democracy.

Right.

So we outfit and train Ben Laden and friends to drive the Soviets from Afghanistan, which they do quite effectively.....and forget to check the psychological profile that shows....my God, he hates America too!!! A similar path that we have followed unfortunately, elsewhere in the world.

In my humble opinion, and I may be way off base here but it is the way I feel at the moment, I think our entire foreign policy protocols need to be overhauled to project the same feeling and attitudes and beliefs to the world OUTSIDE, that we hold so dear and precious AT HOME. It used to be that terrorists said "We hate your government but love your people". Now they are not making any distinction....
Don

Last edited by SVXphile; 09-18-2001 at 07:36 PM.
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Old 09-18-2001, 08:58 PM
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Sit down someday & watch a lava lamp. Life's a lot like what you see happening within the contents of a glass vial. Ron.
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Old 09-18-2001, 09:38 PM
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Quote:
Originally posted by Ron Mummert
Sit down someday & watch a lava lamp. Life's a lot like what you see happening within the contents of a glass vial. Ron.
Ron, if you only knew how many hours I've spent watching lava lamps -- especially in the seventies . . .
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Old 09-19-2001, 01:01 AM
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Lava Lamps & The Meaning of Life

Quote:
Originally posted by Ron Mummert
Sit down someday & watch a lava lamp. Life's a lot like what you see happening within the contents of a glass vial. Ron.
Ron,

This post explains a lot!

Joe
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Old 09-19-2001, 01:06 AM
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Foreign policy

If US foreign policy is driven by any of the sort of measured and enlightened debate shown on these boards on the last few days, then the way forward is not nearly as doom laden as it looked last Tuesday. We will not be "looking through a glass darkly" as per Mr Lewis Carroll.

Or through a lava lamp

Joe
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Old 09-19-2001, 08:28 AM
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Re: Our own worst enemy?

Quote:
Originally posted by SVXphile
<we are funding our own destruction>

We have been down this path before in our history, and it seems to be a lesson we are unwilling to learn.

Reading the last few excellent posts, reminded me of some thoughts I have slowly developed over the years. The foreign policy of our country, as expressed in everything from CIA moves to seat or unseat a foreign dictator, to selling arms and training to anyone as long as they weren't Communist, has operated on a moral level that is not consistent with the beliefs and attitudes of the majority of Americans. As a result, many citizens of poor foreign countries do not see the side of America that we see, or that we think that THEY should be seeing. They see an "ugly" America, willing to go to almost any extent to bully, strong arm, and yes even kill, to continue our power and control. From our side, we said that since we were facing a huge Communist threat everywhere, that those actions were unfortunately necessary. The problem is, many in the third world saw the United States as the power and the arms behind the tyrant dictator that oppressed their people, and Communism as the movement OF the people to end that domination. We sided with the most powerful individual/party/group and armed them to the teeth, just as long as they were "pledged to fight Communism!"
Of course if a few thousand innocent lives get destroyed in the process, well that is the price someone had to pay to stop the Red menace. (Central and South America/Africa/Southeast Asia...etc. etc.)

But what else could we do? Fairly easy really. You beat the Kremlin at its own game....you support the PEOPLE! Arm and train them and they will be a thorn under the Soviet saddle and make the world safe for democracy.

Right.

So we outfit and train Ben Laden and friends to drive the Soviets from Afghanistan, which they do quite effectively.....and forget to check the psychological profile that shows....my God, he hates America too!!! A similar path that we have followed unfortunately, elsewhere in the world.

In my humble opinion, and I may be way off base here but it is the way I feel at the moment, I think our entire foreign policy protocols need to be overhauled to project the same feeling and attitudes and beliefs to the world OUTSIDE, that we hold so dear and precious AT HOME. It used to be that terrorists said "We hate your government but love your people". Now they are not making any distinction....
Don
Don, I feel you are 100% correct. It saddens me to think of the numbers of brutal, oppresive regimes we have supported, all in the name of fighting whomever is the enemy of the moment. Our support of the Taliban when they were fighting the Soviets is just the latest example. Of course, now we're asking the Russians to join us in a potential fight with the Taliban. Ironic, isn't it? We supported the Shah of Iran's oppressive regime, paving the way for the Ayatollah Kohemeni's rise to power. Then, of course, we made common cause with Sadam Hussein, because he was in a fight with Iran. Now, he's not exactly our friend, either. Pinochet in Chile is another example. The list goes on an on.

Poverty, ignorance and despair provide the environment that breed terrorists. As the line from the Bob Dylan song goes, "when you've got nothing, you've got nothing to lose".
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