America Attacked--Friend or Foe?

From this link, http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,34485,00.html

Friends: :slight_smile: 57

Armenia, Azerbaijan, Austria, Belgium, Britain, Brunei, Bulgaria, Burundi, Denmark, Egypt, Ethiopia, France, Georgia, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, India, Indonesia, Japan, Jordan, Kazakstan, Kenya, Kuwait, Lebanon, Liechtenstein, Madagascar, Malawi, Malaysia, Mozambique, Netherlands, New Zealand, North Korea, Norway, Oman, Pakistan, Portugal, Qatar, Rwanda, Saudi Arabia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Somalia, South Africa, South Korea, Spain, Switzerland, Taiwan, Tanzania, Thailand, Turkey, Uganda, Ukraine, UAE, Vietnam, Zambia, Zimbabwe.

Maybe: :rolleyes: 20

Belarus, China, Croatia, Cyprus, Finland, Iran, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Kyrgyzstan, Libya, Russia, Sudan, Sweden, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Venezuela, Yemen, Yugoslavia.

Enemies: :mad: 1
Afghanistan

Sorry Mr. Bin-Laden, you just lost.

Um … I think there are a few more nations than this on the “U.S. Enemies” list.

Like Iraq, for instance.

I know, I was just going off the FoxNews list linked above. Friends=offered support, Maybe=offered support with conditions, Enemy=Declared Targets. To which, Iraq was just added according to radio reports, not necessarily for the WTC/Pentagon/PA attacks, but for previous support of terrorist activity.

Nope. I want to see who actually gives support. I think in the end the Freind list will be about six. Italy and Germany dropped off.

There is a writer and columnist who works in the San Francisco area. His name is Tamim Ansary. He is a US citizen, I think, but he was born in Afghanistan so naturally he takes an interest in what’s going on there.

I have seen an article of his (I’ve tried to find it online but drawn a blank) in which he puts the case for the Afghan people.

Amongst other things he points out that Taliban and Osama bin Laden are not Afghanistan. Taliban is a group of psychotic thugs who took over the country in 1997. Osama bin Laden is a terrorist, and a man with a plan.

Tamim Ansary further says that he is sometimes asked why the Afghan people do not overthrow Taliban. The reason is because they are poor, tired, hurt, confused and without the necessary resources to strike.

There is very little infrastructure in Afghanistan. There is very little economy and very little food. It is not a good place.

Tamim Ansary says that Afghanistan is not the enemy of the US, or anybody else.

I agree with every single word that Tamim Ansary writes. Every single word.

The US has an enemy who is hiding himself in a country the people of which do not want him. That is not their fault.

I am sick to my stomach of people who say that Afghanistan is their enemy, and who will not stop to measure the cost of any military action to the people of Afghanistan. These people just do not know what they are talking about.

I hope, and I even think, that the US government is considering these matters, very, very carefully indeed.

Because although you have suffered a very great tragedy through a ferocious and unwarranted terrorist attack, which I do not seek to diminish in any way, the US must above all get the right people when they strike, minimise civilian casualties and stop regarding Afghanistan as its enemy.

It is not.

Melin started a discussion over on Fathom concerning Mr Ansary’s words.
That link will take you to the thread in question which links to the article in question.

As for the OP, I think furt has a good point.
Let’s not count our chickens before they hatch.

Just my 2sense
Hi! I’m a Weenie What’s your sign?

And I just noticed that Kyomara has started a thread on this subject here in GD.

Just my 2sense

I think you can safely add Canada to that list.

I heard that Italy has said they will supply troops.

OMG! My bad. Of course, and I don’t mean that in a “taken for granted” way. I mean of course, because Canada is America’s sister, in all senses.

According to the link above, their Defense Minister, Mr. Antonio Martino, “ruled out Italian military participation.” Has their stance changed very recently?

I heard that just before coming upstairs to get online, which was after 8:00 CST.

Certainly in a West Virginian sense.
:: flees ::

I didn’t know how else to say it. Countries are usually referred to in the feminine sense. For example, one would say “Canada is a great nation, she will go on.” I was thinking along the lines of brothers, and gentleman, but used the conventional “she.” I agree my rendition seems lame, but the thought was nothing but heartfelt.

There was nothing awkward in your prose.
I just couldn’t control the urge for a cheap joke.

Sorry.

The list was from Fox News, huh?

Naw, I won’t do it. Fish in a barrel, ya know.

Soon we’ll see

“When NATO Attacks!”

or

“Who Wants To Marry a Psychotic Batshit Terrorist Multimillionaire?”

… or

“Taliban Autopsy”

or

“Opening the Lost Buddhist Statues: Live from Afghanistan”

Nostradamus (cum falsa damus) wrote:

According to something I saw tonight on the History Channel (ow! stop hitting!), there are apparently quite a number of people in Afghanistan who have embraced the Taliban’s fundamentalist zero-tolerance zealotry. The country has been ravaged by the Soviet occupation for a decade or more, which is why its economy and food supplies are so pathetic. Most people wanted some semblance of order to arise from all that chaos, and the Taliban gave them that semblance of order in spades. No group of thugs can stay in power for long if it has zero popular support.

The situation in Afghanistan is more complicated than that.

The case is in some ways surprisingly similar to Serbia under Milosevic, and I sincerely hope recent history is taken into account if and when this disgustingly media-hyped war breaks out.

In Serbia, Milosevic and his ministers engaged in a lengthy propaganda campaign of massive proportions to convince the Serbian people that A) the ethnic Albanians in Kosovo were invading Serbian land, destroying Orthodox churches, hurting Serbs, etc.; and B) NATO had declared an unjust war against Serbs for trying to defend themselves.

To an extent, both claims are true. Ethnic Albanian terrorists, the KLA, were invading Serbian land, stirring unrest, bombing Orthodox churches, targetting Kosovar Serbs, slaughtering policemen, etc. No doubt about it–but they were terrorists, NOT the general Albanian population, which has lived alongside the Serbs for hundreds of years. NATO’s war against Serbia was indeed unjust, because it targeted the infrastructure necessary to the well-being of innocents (not to mention various other irregularities discussed on these boards). Milosevic cunningly manipulated information (and thus people) in order to ensure his own place.

Over a period of time, and thanks to the efforts of Serbs (particularly the idealistic youth groups), the collective Serbian mentality grew to understand the effects of Milosevic’s misinformation, toppled his regime, and embraced democracy once more under the leadership of a reluctant but brilliant statesman (Kostunica).

It wasn’t the bombing that accomplished this. That was no more than a cruel incentive. What won the war against Milosevic was information in the hands of the Serbs. One of the first things Kostunica did was broadcast on television (previously controlled by Milosevic’s regime) evidence of Serbian military atrocities, which the Serb population watched in shock and even denial.

The KLA, that group of miserable and despicable cowards, hopped pover the border to Macedonia, changed its name, and attempted the same shit there.

Now, when it comes to history most people are happy to generalize about poorly understood major events, but Serbia is still fresh compared to most other cases. It is a question of learning from experience, something that doesn’t always happen when patriotism and calls for war emerge.

Afghanistan is under the grip of a terrorist regime, make no mistake about it. The Taliban, who style themselves as Moslem scholars, took over the country using brute force in September 1996. Since then, the Taliban have engaged in their own massive propaganda campaign, setting up the key messages, destroying communications infrastructure, outlawing television and most technology, and generally enforcing a strict fundamentalist Islamic school of thought that amounts to nothing more than population control.

The people of Aghanistan themselves are in a sorry position. On one hand their standard of existence today is among the worse in the world; on the other hand, they are the victims of strong Taliban conditioning that has been going on for five years now. When word reaches them that the USA will declare war against Afghanistan, what are they to think? The Taliban, which controls most of the information in the country, is not their government of choice, but at the same time they are very anxious about being attacked yet again. And, since they are followers of Islam, they are being fooled into thinking that this is an attack against Islam on the part of the “anti-Arab/ anti-Islam” Americans. Like the Serbs under Milosevic, the Afghans under the Taliban are the innocent victims of violence and misinformation.

Now, in my opinion a careful program combining surgincal military action and targeted education will be FAR more effective in this case than any war. It will be cheaper too, and much easier on the global economy. But if the US government and the idiotic US media insist on portraying this as all-out war before the enemy is even defined, I fear there will be a repeat of Serbia-- probably more severe-- and a very strong backlash too.

The Afghans in general do not support the Taliban, but they will probably have no choice but support it if they perceive their religion or what remains of their well-being come under threat. These are all factors to consider.