For what it's worth...
-
I received this email from a friend. I don't know where he got it from, but it was an interesting read. Enjoy. ------------------------------------------ This is from an Afghan-American. He casts light on this situation in a slightly different way. ==================== I've been hearing a lot of talk about "bombing Afghanistan back to the Stone Age." Ron 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 deeply hates the Taliban and Osama Bin Laden. My hatred comes from first hand experience. 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 Talibanhas 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
A good one. I was reading another interesting piece this morning on Salon.com on the effective way to Ctrl+Alt+Del \bin\laden http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2001/09/13/justice/index.html // Fazlul
Get RadVC today! Play RAD in VC++ http://www.capitolsoft.com
-
I received this email from a friend. I don't know where he got it from, but it was an interesting read. Enjoy. ------------------------------------------ This is from an Afghan-American. He casts light on this situation in a slightly different way. ==================== I've been hearing a lot of talk about "bombing Afghanistan back to the Stone Age." Ron 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 deeply hates the Taliban and Osama Bin Laden. My hatred comes from first hand experience. 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 Talibanhas 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
Thanks Jon. I hope more people read this. cheers, Chris Maunder (CodeProject)
-
As long as they actually do what they say they will. David
You're right David. It has already been looking a pretty hard sell for Gen. Musharraf. The former army general (Aslam Beg)has issued this red alert warning.. http://www.dawn.com/2001/09/16/top5.htm // Fazlul
Get RadVC today! Play RAD in VC++ http://www.capitolsoft.com
-
I'd say this is bang on. Without Pakistan's involvement, the chance of this being interpreted as an attack against the Islamic faith is pretty high. FYI, I've been watching this site pretty often to try and get the Pakistani side of the story: http://www.jang.com.pk/thenews/ David
Pakistani news from Pakistan is that they are happy for what happened to USA but on the other hand they also hate Taliban because a lot of Afghanistanis have brought guns and drugs in Pakistan. They say that America is should get its revenge but not killing innocent Afghanis but by controlling them. For what happened in NYC Pakis say that America is not innocent and atleast Americans will now have a feeling about thos innocent Palestinians to whom such things happen daily. If America is saying that it doesn't like terrorism then it should stop supporting Israel as a back hand and solve their problem otherwise it is continuous terrorism. I am asking this to Americans, if they say they are civilized then force with same thinking, BUSH to stop Israel. Otherwise cathing only Osama Bin Laden will not solve problem. How do you know if there is only one guy like Osama. He might have produced many. In my dream, I was dorwning in my §orrow§ But my §orrow§, they learned to §wim
-
I received this email from a friend. I don't know where he got it from, but it was an interesting read. Enjoy. ------------------------------------------ This is from an Afghan-American. He casts light on this situation in a slightly different way. ==================== I've been hearing a lot of talk about "bombing Afghanistan back to the Stone Age." Ron 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 deeply hates the Taliban and Osama Bin Laden. My hatred comes from first hand experience. 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 Talibanhas 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
-
Wow, a nice, intelligent post about how hard this will be. Refreshing to see instead of the "You can't invade because you are EVIL AMERICANS" junk we have been seeing. People do need to realize that even if we invade with the support of most of the Islamic nations, we will have to be constantly aware of what we do. Friendships can turn very quickly. Hopefully we will be able to balance diplomacy and military. On one hand I don't want to see us getting in a war with all of the Islamic countries, but I don't want to see us doing what we did to our troops in Vietnam. But, I would also like to question a common theme with these messages. They are all basically saying, "This is a mistake". But what is the alternative? To quote Mr. Shwaydar, "Let's pull our heads out of the sand". Bin Laden does want a war between Islam and the west. Doing nothing or making token military gestures will not change that. Also, giving into some of their demands will not change the situation either. Appeasement didn't save Europe from Hitler. It will not save the west from Bin Laden. (EDIT) If a war is going to happen. We need to be patient. It is VERY important that the war happens on our terms and not Binnie's. Tim Smith Descartes Systems Sciences, Inc.
Being a Russian citizen living and working in US, I don't know if I am in any position to advice in such situation, but the recent tragic events have to do with the whole world, so I will dare. Military campaign is necessary to get the terrorists down, but IMHO it would be wrong to start with a massive strike. Right now we are dealing with world-wide network. If you occupy the Afganistan, this will not be enough. The invasion forces will get stuck there, but bin laden and his guys would easily escape, move to Pakistan or anywhere else where they have supporters. Should the invasion force use WMD, chances are they will kill SOME terrorists along with MILLIONS of innocent people. Nice option, huh? Now what I think may help: - Organize wide campaign of pressure on terrorists and states supporting them (already being done). - Cut off their sources of funding. Buy less oil from the Middle East. 60% of world oil consuming are by U.S., this is the time to use strategic resources. There is also a lot of oil in Alaska, etc. Invest more money into development of oil-free technologies in order to decrease oil consumption by factor 3..4 in 5-10 years (good for environment, too) - Taliban may also make big money on drugs. They deny this, but should we believe them? Closer control on drug dealing network might help in cutting their funding. - Help the Afganistan's Northern Alliance. They hate taliban, fight taliban for many years, and they have support within the country, as opposed to invasion forses. - Hunt down their network. This would be a long-term intelligence operation, involving many of the world police and intelligence forces. Carry out some limited, "surgical" military operations when it is needed and possible. - Increase security measures (already being done). Prohibit all radical religious groups in as many countries as it will be possible. - Work on social roots of terrorism. There is no secret that lots of people worldwide support those lunatics. It is absolutely necessary to understand why, and how to deprive terrorists of their social base. But this is a separate, long discussion. All this will take a lot of time, efforts, money, maybe even lives, but there is no silver bullet. The alternative is - World War III. This is what bin laden wants and what he has planned for us. Peace and good luck for all us, Yuri
-
Being a Russian citizen living and working in US, I don't know if I am in any position to advice in such situation, but the recent tragic events have to do with the whole world, so I will dare. Military campaign is necessary to get the terrorists down, but IMHO it would be wrong to start with a massive strike. Right now we are dealing with world-wide network. If you occupy the Afganistan, this will not be enough. The invasion forces will get stuck there, but bin laden and his guys would easily escape, move to Pakistan or anywhere else where they have supporters. Should the invasion force use WMD, chances are they will kill SOME terrorists along with MILLIONS of innocent people. Nice option, huh? Now what I think may help: - Organize wide campaign of pressure on terrorists and states supporting them (already being done). - Cut off their sources of funding. Buy less oil from the Middle East. 60% of world oil consuming are by U.S., this is the time to use strategic resources. There is also a lot of oil in Alaska, etc. Invest more money into development of oil-free technologies in order to decrease oil consumption by factor 3..4 in 5-10 years (good for environment, too) - Taliban may also make big money on drugs. They deny this, but should we believe them? Closer control on drug dealing network might help in cutting their funding. - Help the Afganistan's Northern Alliance. They hate taliban, fight taliban for many years, and they have support within the country, as opposed to invasion forses. - Hunt down their network. This would be a long-term intelligence operation, involving many of the world police and intelligence forces. Carry out some limited, "surgical" military operations when it is needed and possible. - Increase security measures (already being done). Prohibit all radical religious groups in as many countries as it will be possible. - Work on social roots of terrorism. There is no secret that lots of people worldwide support those lunatics. It is absolutely necessary to understand why, and how to deprive terrorists of their social base. But this is a separate, long discussion. All this will take a lot of time, efforts, money, maybe even lives, but there is no silver bullet. The alternative is - World War III. This is what bin laden wants and what he has planned for us. Peace and good luck for all us, Yuri
FYI, there's more oil locked up in Alberta Canada's Tar sands than there is in the Middle East. A fact I was surprised to learn myself. Here's a snipped from Natural Resources Canada: Canada’s oil sands are spread across 77 000 sq. km of relatively remote northern Alberta landscape in the Western Canada Sedimentary Basin. They are located in four deposits – Peace River to the northwest, Athabasca and Wabasca to the northeast, and Cold Lake to the east. Canada’s oil sands are thought to hold 270 to 397 billion m3 (1.7 to 2.5 trillion bbls) of bitumen in place, of which about 48 billion m3 (300 billion bbls) are considered to be recoverable with current technologies and processes. This makes Canada’s oil sands one of the largest hydrocarbon deposits in the world, larger than even Saudi Arabia’s proven oil reserves. If all of the oil in Canada’s oil sands could be recovered, the world’s oil demand could be met for the next 100 years. Today, oil sands account for about 26 percent of total Canadian crude oil production. With industry-wide expansion programs announced or under way, this amount could easily increase to 50 percent or more beyond 2005. David
-
FYI, there's more oil locked up in Alberta Canada's Tar sands than there is in the Middle East. A fact I was surprised to learn myself. Here's a snipped from Natural Resources Canada: Canada’s oil sands are spread across 77 000 sq. km of relatively remote northern Alberta landscape in the Western Canada Sedimentary Basin. They are located in four deposits – Peace River to the northwest, Athabasca and Wabasca to the northeast, and Cold Lake to the east. Canada’s oil sands are thought to hold 270 to 397 billion m3 (1.7 to 2.5 trillion bbls) of bitumen in place, of which about 48 billion m3 (300 billion bbls) are considered to be recoverable with current technologies and processes. This makes Canada’s oil sands one of the largest hydrocarbon deposits in the world, larger than even Saudi Arabia’s proven oil reserves. If all of the oil in Canada’s oil sands could be recovered, the world’s oil demand could be met for the next 100 years. Today, oil sands account for about 26 percent of total Canadian crude oil production. With industry-wide expansion programs announced or under way, this amount could easily increase to 50 percent or more beyond 2005. David
Yeah, but isn't the key phrase there "locked up"? Isn't most of it *really* difficult to extract and process? "I never met anyone I didn't like" Will Rogers.
-
Yeah, but isn't the key phrase there "locked up"? Isn't most of it *really* difficult to extract and process? "I never met anyone I didn't like" Will Rogers.
Yeah, the technology has improved dramatically in the last 5 years however, and there's great promise that these reserves will be very usable within 25. Hey maybe if the World is still hooked on oil in 25 years we'll be the Saudi's of the North ;) David
-
Pakistani news from Pakistan is that they are happy for what happened to USA but on the other hand they also hate Taliban because a lot of Afghanistanis have brought guns and drugs in Pakistan. They say that America is should get its revenge but not killing innocent Afghanis but by controlling them. For what happened in NYC Pakis say that America is not innocent and atleast Americans will now have a feeling about thos innocent Palestinians to whom such things happen daily. If America is saying that it doesn't like terrorism then it should stop supporting Israel as a back hand and solve their problem otherwise it is continuous terrorism. I am asking this to Americans, if they say they are civilized then force with same thinking, BUSH to stop Israel. Otherwise cathing only Osama Bin Laden will not solve problem. How do you know if there is only one guy like Osama. He might have produced many. In my dream, I was dorwning in my §orrow§ But my §orrow§, they learned to §wim
Israel is just a scapegoat for these terrorists. It makes no sense that a peice of land 0.001% the size of all the Arab states is a cause of such problems. Palestinians are in no way innocent victims. They have commited countless acts of terror. They train their own children to use weapons and kill. They beleive that killing other people will get them a free pass to heaven. That is terrorism!
-
Israel is just a scapegoat for these terrorists. It makes no sense that a peice of land 0.001% the size of all the Arab states is a cause of such problems. Palestinians are in no way innocent victims. They have commited countless acts of terror. They train their own children to use weapons and kill. They beleive that killing other people will get them a free pass to heaven. That is terrorism!
-
Israel is just a scapegoat for these terrorists. It makes no sense that a peice of land 0.001% the size of all the Arab states is a cause of such problems. Palestinians are in no way innocent victims. They have commited countless acts of terror. They train their own children to use weapons and kill. They beleive that killing other people will get them a free pass to heaven. That is terrorism!
-
A good one. I was reading another interesting piece this morning on Salon.com on the effective way to Ctrl+Alt+Del \bin\laden http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2001/09/13/justice/index.html // Fazlul
Get RadVC today! Play RAD in VC++ http://www.capitolsoft.com
-
I received this email from a friend. I don't know where he got it from, but it was an interesting read. Enjoy. ------------------------------------------ This is from an Afghan-American. He casts light on this situation in a slightly different way. ==================== I've been hearing a lot of talk about "bombing Afghanistan back to the Stone Age." Ron 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 deeply hates the Taliban and Osama Bin Laden. My hatred comes from first hand experience. 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 Talibanhas 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
I've just got to wonder out loud. If some changes are made in the U.S. to partially remove the ban on assasinations, wouldn't we be able to fly some guys in with a stealth aircraft, drop them on the leaders, and take off before anyone knew what was going on? Of course, it couldn't be _that_ easy, but would the political situation in the countries surrounding the problem area really make that big of a difference? Again, just wondering. John
-
That article is pure crap. bin Laden has already been indicted as a mass murdered, and Afganistan STILL refuses to hand him over. Being diplomatic simply got a lot of innocent Americans killed last week. Diplomacy is NOT an option at this point.
I think the original article in this thread bears reading. As I've said all along, whoever did this, did it knowing the US response. I don't think diplomacy is to blame for last week, although I'd not advocate diplomacy as a solution either. It's a tough call, but one that needs to me made carefully. A lot of people here have been talking about if they will get drafted or if they will 'escape'. Do you think people in Muslim countries being carpet bombed in the hope of killing the one guy capable of hiding there will try to dodge the draft, or be queuing up ? Islam is the biggest religion in the world ( must be all those virgins on offer ). If the polarisation that these people obviously want occurs, then we're in a world of trouble. We are certainly in for a world war. Christian As I learn the innermost secrets of the around me, they reward me in many ways to keep quiet. Men with pierced ears are better prepared for marriage. They've experienced pain and bought Jewellery.
-
They train no doubt but they know that the world is unfair to them. Why last time Israel's tank shot at a civilian apartment when they wanted to hit intelligence areas. Its all that America is backing Israel and that's why ppl there have started Jihad. Nobody likes their children to die like that unless there is a cause for that. They are Freedom fighters for their country and so are terrorists for Israel and America. Still Americans are not thinking about Palestine that why same thing happens. I beleive that Israel as a nation is civilized they dont want such things but politians like doing such things. In my dream, I was dorwning in my §orrow§ But my §orrow§, they learned to §wim
