JUST A MATTER OF TIME - Let's Look Before We Leap!
Albert Burns
Monday, Sept. 16, 2001
Bomb Afghanistan? Over and over, on television and in printed media as
well as among friends, I keep hearing this desire, understandable after
what happened in New York City but clearly not well thought out. The
desire for instant retaliation can lead to very serious consequences if
we are not VERY careful. The ASSUMPTION is that the country of
Afghanistan was behind the terrorist attack in New York and Washington,
DC. There are at least seven or eight other countries which are just as
likely to have been involved in the attack.
Those who are so eager to get involved in Afghanistan have forgotten
(or never knew) some of the critically important information about that
country. First, the Taliban sect and Osama Bin Laden are not
representative of the Afghanistani people. In the wake of the Russian
withdrawal in 1989, the Taliban group started a civil war which led to
them taking over control of most of the country and starting what
amounts to a reign of terror there. They have instituted a fanatically
rigid Muslim regime there which has punished anyone who did not conform
to their interpretation of Muslim doctrine. Women have been totally
subdued, many of the widows of the war with Russia have been
exterminated ruthlessly by the Taliban. The people of Afghanistan were
the FIRST victims of the Taliban!
The Soviet Union found out, the hard way, that the terrain of
Afghanistan is EXTREMELY difficult to wage a war in. They tried for ten
YEARS to conquer the Afghanistan people. THEY had a $200 million road
leading into Afghanistan which had been designed and subsidized by the
United States government during the late 1960s, being completed July,
1970 . THEY used every modern weapon in their arsenal without reserve.
In addition, THEY used terror weapons such as booby trapped toys which
were dropped from planes. When Afghanistan children picked up the
explosive toys, the children lost hands, arms, legs, eyes or where
killed outright. According to a UN estimate, there are some 500,000
disabled children in Afghanistan. Can you imagine us using such
weapons? Finally they simply gave up and went home!
Bomb Afghanistan? Bomb WHAT? The Soviet Union already did a very good
job of that. Level their houses? Done! Turn their schools into piles
of rubble? Done! Destroy their hospitals? Done! Destroy the
infrastructure of the country? Again, already done. Destroy their
agricultural capacity? Too late! There is already so much suffering in
Afghanistan that our government has sent them $117 MILLION THIS YEAR,
which supposedly was to relieve the human suffering there. Of course,
the aid went to the government, not to the people who needed it so
desperately.
Bombing might kill many of the people but would probably not get the
Taliban or Osama Bin Laden. They are the only ones who have any
mobility. If Osama Bin Laden IS in Afghanistan now (and that is not
certain) it would take ground troops and massive armament. How do we
get it there? WE don't have a convenient road to drive there. We would
have to go through Pakistan where we would not exactly be welcome! The
Taliban have already warned Pakistan against allowing that. To go
through Pakistan by force would risk uniting the Muslim world against
the United States. The actions of the United States government during
the past decade have already inflamed Arabs and Muslims in other
countries against us. To unite that animosity would start a world wide
"jihad" or holy war against us. Is that really what we want?
It IS what Osama bin Laden wants — his speeches and writings have
proclaimed that that is his objective. He figures that if he can
polarize the world into Islam and the West (probably including Europe)
he would have billions of warriors on his side and would win. In the
end, they would probably lose, but the war would last years and cost
millions of lives, not just theirs but many of ours, both on the
battlefield and here at home as well.
NOTE— I am NOT saying that we should not go after Osama Bin Laden and
the Taliban (assuming that we can develop a CERTAINTY that they are the
ones responsible for the events of September 11th). I AM saying that we
should be fully cognizant of EXACTLY what we are doing and not act
solely out of an emotional desire for instant revenge. The American
people must be fully informed of the consequences to be expected of an
attack on Afghanistan. Right now, I seriously doubt that very many
Americans have any real knowledge of the history of Afghanistan or the
probable consequences of their eagerness to "Bomb Afghanistan!"