THE AFGHANS
Taliban Plead for Mercy to the Miserable in a Land of Nothing
By BARRY BEARAK
The Associated Press
The Taliban begged America on Wednesday not to attack a people who “have suffered so much.”
ABUL, Afghanistan, Sept. 12 — If there are Americans clamoring to bomb Afghanistan back to the Stone Age, they ought to know that this nation does not have so far to go. This is a post-apocalyptic place of felled cities, parched land and downtrodden people.
The fragility of this country was part of the message the Taliban government conveyed in a plea for restraint issued late tonight. It said in part, “We appeal to the United States not to put Afghanistan into more misery because our people have suffered so much.”
Cry me an effing river!
Maybe the Taliban should have thought of this back when Osama bin Laden started his campaign against the United States. It’s a little too late now. Even handing over bin Laden will not be sufficient at this point. The entire remaining war machine of the bin Laden organization must be eliminated as well.
“Suffered enough?” The suffering has yet to begin. Maybe when we are done with them the Afghani people will understand the true meaning of suffering. Until then, they can hold their collective breaths while they wait for the other shoe to drop.
An example must be made of the Afghani nation so that any other country even contemplating such dastardly deeds will stop in their tracks and reconsider. This was an act of war and it must be countered with extreme violence such that there are no illusions about the price of such an atrocity.
This might be utterly simplistic of me, but your average Afghani citizen is as much to blame for these atrocities as the average American citizen is to blame for bombing Hiroshima.
Why do you want to kill large numbers of people who had nothing to do with what happened this week?
If you want to make an example by killing more innocents, why Afghanistan? Why not Canada, or the UK, or Mozambique? I fail to see the logic in punishing people for the crimes of their leaders. Can you be sure it will deter further atrocities, or might it not create martyrs and fuel a greater anti-American rhetoric?
I understand the desire for revenge. I do not see that lashing out at groups potentially only tenuously connected to the attacks will do any good at all.
I was deeply saddened to learn of what had happened, then on one of the news station I see people celebrating this! Handing out candy! Fuck them, casualties or not I won’t care if a damn bomb lands on their dinner table.
And to top it off today I recieved an email, asking for greviance for the palestini people, Fuck them
You believe every email you receive? I don’t. Who’s to say it’s not some mindless jerk trying to manipulate your anger and grief? The same is true for media footage: one clip of one group of cretins does not mean an entire nation or religion is thinking the same way.
I agree that bombing Afghan citizens will do little but flame any exisiting anti-American feelings.
However, by maintaining that we may do this, we hold a considerable position of leverage over the Taliban.
They are soiling their drawers as the magnitude of what happened begins to sink in. They know that someone is going to be crushed for this. Pakistan has encouraged the Taliban to turn over bin Laden (significant because Pakistan is one of the only govts to recognize the Taliban). Even more remarkable, the Taliban is said to be considering this.
bin Laden has cut his own throat. No country on Earth would harbor him now.
For the first time since Tuesday, I am actually feeling a little upbeat. I feel there exists a real chance to decapitate major terrorist cells the world over.
Maybe, just maybe, some good may come out of this.
Sure you want them to die.
When you hear about children dying,
Your heart will soar.
When you see people crying,
You will wish to spit in their face.
Your hatred will know no bounds.
You are not different than those that did it.
Kill the innocent; they’re guilty by race.
You think that is American patriotism?
It’s just bigoted thought that’s best ignored.
Terrorism will persist as long as people and governments are willing to turn a blind eye to such activities. Whether or not the Afghani people were directly involved with these acts, only severe retribution will make it clear that there is a price to be paid for having this sort of vermin within your borders. Cry out all you want that the Afghani people did not know. Let this serve as warning that people must know what is happening within their borders.
A population that does not rise up against a government that controls all information and restricts freedom is inviting just this scenario. Anyone on this green earth who draws a breath or eats a meal is not innocent. By living, we must also take sides. The Afghani people sided with their Taliban government by allowing them to rule without mass rebellion. Their suffering will be the direct result of their willingness to abide such willful ignorance.
The rest of the world will have the opportunity to learn from the object lesson that the Afghani people will embody. Participation or indirect support of any terrorist activities will result in direct ruin of your civilization.
While all of you bemaon and bewail such harsh measures, I see none of you positing any sort of functional alternatives. Force respects force and nothing else. The name of Osama bin Laden must be cursed by every Afghani person alive in order to fully impress upon them the need to eschew terrorism. All other nations supporting terrorism must receive a dose of the same medicine. Negotiation is what brought us to this crisis, enough of the soft-pedaling, time to get down to business.
The people in the WTC and Pentagon didn’t do anything to deserve the attacks. The same goes for just about everyone in Afganistan. Only a very few people may have had anything to do with it. And if we bombed and killed their innocent people, we’d be celebrating in the streets too.
Whether or not the Taliban did this last act, they still deserve an ass whooping. They’re the most repressive, evil government in existence, IMHO.
Don’t you use the word “we”. You do not speak for me. I can guarantee you that I would not be celebrating in the streets, or even privately if “we bombed and killed their innocent people.”
I want the people responsible caught and punished … and they can’t come up with punishment enough that would satisfy me. But my rage and wish for vengence is limited to those responsible. Do I realise that innocent lives may end up being lost as we try to punish the guilty? Yes, I do, I’m not naive. However, I will not celebrate it.
Afgani women under the Talibin regime are terribly opressed (gross understatement). To speak so casually of killing them, and children, who have absolutely no say in what their government does is horrifying.
Since the attackers all boarded domestic flights, weren’t we harboring them within OUR borders, at least for a while?
I fail to see how a bunch of sheepherders and women (who aren’t even allowed to learn to read) are directly responsible for sponsoring international terrorism.
The Taliban are reprehensible. Bin Laden is reprehensible. The reason Bin Laden chose Afghanistan is because it’s a remote place with a low level of technology - therefore he’ll be hard to find and hard to monitor there.
This is the kind of nationalism we don’t need, Zenster, and I’m frankly disappointed in you for harboring this kind of hate.
I say, first let’s prove, beyond any reasonable doubt, that bin Laden is behind this.
Then, let’s ask for him. Nicely. Give them a minute or two to either a) deliver him to us, or b) give us his address so we can go get him ourselves.
And if they don’t do it, well…then I think we should turn the crater left after we bomb the living crap out of them into the biggest parking lot on the planet.
Zenster, I’m appalled at you and know you are capable of better and clearer thinking. The Taliban controls 95% of Afghanistan, which means that 5% is still actively protected from their “government”, and surely there are dissedents within the 95%. Brutal occupation does not require the people’s consent, and the geographical, economic, and technological factor present there do not allow for an effective uprising. To condemn so many innocents because of the actions of a few is bloodthirstiness at its most abhorrent.
As has already been pointed out, the alternative to bombing is to find those responsible and punish them. Only them. All the rhetoric in the world will not convince me that the women living under endless house arrest in their own country deserve to be bombed because of the tragedy here.
Oh, and Nicklz, dear:
You do realize, don’t you, that the Palestinians and the Afghanis are two different peoples, living in two different countries? And moreover, that tape which has so angered you has already been brought into question regarding its validity?