News from Kabul...

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

CNN - Pakistani diplomats just concluded a meeting with the leaders of Afghanistan’s Taliban. The meeting is said to have been inconclusive which in diplospeak means that no agreement was reached. Pakistan is only one of three countries that recognizes the Taliban as the legitimate government and the only country that has any kind of influence on them.

Shortly thereafter a Taliban spokesman called a press conference and they repeated that they were against this attack and continued by asking that the U.S. not take any measures against the their leaders. He said an attack on Afghanistan would only hurt people who are already suffering. He asked for mercy.

Once again they defended Osama Bin Laden.

To ask for mercy and defend a known terrorist in the same breath is hypocracy.

I bear no ill towards the citizens of Afghanistan and hope that their leaders revise their position on supporting Bin Laden as he is a cancer in their midst. We all know as they do, that cancer can kill you if it is not treated.

I will not blame any Muslims for this attack because a true follower of The Prophet would never wage war against people the Koran says are your brothers and sisters.

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The Taliban cannot hope to sit on the fence in this situation. I wonder if the Taliban would turn traitor en masse against Bin Laden if the U.S. twsited their collective arms some kind of way.

Having native Afghan guides/soldiers flush Bin Laden out of the Hindu Kush mountains would help the U.S. retaliation cause tremendously.

3

The problem I have is thus:

True followers of Islam do not espouse violence.
Terrorism is identified as being a Muslim extremist act.

How does this work? Why would they want to destroy the United States anyway? I don’t understand the hatred. I really don’t. I also really don’t get killing in the name of God, or Allah, or Jehovah, or for that matter Barry. The God that I am acquainted with would never want such things.

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I have to agree, Ginger. I said repeatedly yesterday that I couldn’t remotely begin to fathom a religion where God opens the gates of Heaven to you if you engage in the wholesale massacre of innocent men, women, and children.

I believe there’s a very special part of hell reserved for people like this.

They didn’t kill Americans yesterday. Or Chinese. Or Japanese. Or… It’s called the WORLD Trade Center for a reason.

Plain and simple, they killed human beings.

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Mindweb is my best friend in the world.

6

Sorry folks.

I meant to introduce myself before, but I’m at work and am not as good at multitasking as I’d like to think.

Hello everyone.

I’m the new guy.

Please pardon my abrupt entrance. I meant to lurk a bit longer before jumping in with both feet, but too many of these messages have hit home lately.

Anyway, I’m MindWeb. Pleased to meet you all.

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Welcome, MindWeb.

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Pretty much the same way that people who call themselves christian can bomb abortion clinics and murder homosexuals in the name of Christ.

As Jesus wept, so does Allah.

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I, for one, appreciate your astute, compassionate and well-phrased sentiments, MindWeb. I welcome you here with open arms.

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Welcome, Mindweb.

All I have to add is that jihad and defence of the Islamic faith against “infidels” is wa-a-ay up on the list of fanatics as a dictum to live by. We’re dealing with a fundamentalist organisation or set of organisations. And, for my tuppence-worth – I wouldn’t be surprised if they find America’s old “friend” Iraq involved in this.

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I once had this very discussion with a Muslim co-worker at my old job. His very words: People who say they kill in Allah’s name are outside of the Muslim religion. Terrorists use religion as an excuse for their hatred, but Muslims he knew did not believe that there was a place in “heaven” for these people. By killing innocents, they do condemn themselves to eternal suffering& so on, somehow like the christian viewpoint of hell.

Of course this is only one conversation I had with one person about 6 months ago, but he was very sincere & I have no reason to doubt his word. I haven’t read the Q’uran, so I’ll go with his word until someone comes up with a quote from the Q’uran saying otherwise.

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Supposedly, they ARE involved. Cite follows:
http://www.worldtribune.com/worldtribune/

O

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MindWeb makes an outstanding point. Would that my posts-to-wisdom ratio were as high as his is right now!!

While I have absolutely no desire to even think about standing in defense of the Taliban, they are in something of a touchy place right now.

Parallel situation: It’s 1789, and you’re President George W (ashington). We’ve won the Revolutionary War with the invaluable help of the Marquis de Lafayette. The French Revolution has just broken out, and the National Assembly has called on us to surrender him as an “enemy of the people” – identifying a bunch of evil things he is alleged to have done.

What’re you gonna do?

Granted the situation is not on target with the real world – rather than false accusations by a radical government, we’re advancing circumstantial evidence based on the best intelligence and counterterrorism work available (debatable, but allow me it for the nonce). And, of course, Lafayette generally supported the French Revolution, though not its excesses.

But still – the man has just helped you throw out the tyrants and get independence, at cost to his own fortune and at risk of his own life. And now somebody else claims he’s evil and demands his surrender.

Even the most bloody-minded of us can, I think, see a right to sanctuary for such a man – from their point of view.

I don’t suggest that this is right in any abstract sense – but it certainly fits their perspective – and remember the importance of hospitality in the Near East – God allegedly destroyed an entire city with fire from heaven for attempting to abuse the strangers within it. Not only is Bin Laden a “stranger within their gates” but he is also their Lafayette against Russia.

They are caught between a rock and a hard place, and I will venture any Islamic-world specialists in the State Department recognize this – which is why, IMHO, we’re moving very slowly on the issue.

[Before anybody decides to jump me for defending them – I categorically deny that’s what I’m doing. I’m trying to understand their motivations – a quite different thing.]

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And I forgot my sig.

O

Kill 'em all. Who cares if they get sorted out…

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Polycarp, I’d feel just a tad more sympathy for the Taliban position if our own government’s aid hadn’t been crucial in freeing their country from Soviet domination. The Taliban owes a bigger debt to us than it does to bin Laden.

This is more like Louis XVI’s government, which funded and supplied the revolutionaries, demanding Lafayette back on suspicion of helping to blow up the Louvre.

16

I am one of the biggest doves you’re bound to run accross, but I’m beginning to sway toward sticking a gun under Afghanistan’s nose.

This isn’t from anger. I’ve thought about this rationally. If it is bin Ladin responsible for yesterday’s carnage (and it’s looking pretty likely), he needs to be punished severely. Hell, he needs to be punished anyway for the shit he pulled before this.

He flaunts his hatred for America. He produces tapes bragging about how he bombed the Cole. He makes no bones about the fact that he wants to bring us down. I think it might be time for us to step up and say, “Bring it on, you little turd.”

And if it takes us knocking on Afghanistan’s door and saying, “Hand him over or else,” then I think we ought to do it - and stand behind our “or else” as well. I don’t want us to go to war - but sometimes a fight cannot be avoided - and sometimes a fight happens for noble causes.

Violence sucks. It doesn’t solve anything. But justice is a real issue and it needs to be addressed.

I don’t want to turn into John Wayne here, but if this ass is so anxious to die for his cause, I say we give him a push.

That is the extent of my patriotic little rant.

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Someone suggested asking Saudi Arabia to freeze his assets-can they do that? WOULD they do that?

I would think that the Taliban would have to be frightened…look at how quickly they jumped up to say, “We didn’t do it?” I would think that they would be scared shitless…

But what do I know…

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Two things:

  1. MindWeb, you don’t need to apologize for jumping in. If you continue to post in the wise, well-thought-out way you “jumped in”, then you’ll do just fine round these-here parts. Welcome, friend.

  2. Jack Batty, I agree that it’s about justice, not anger, retribution, revenge or being righteously pissed off. Bin-Laden needs to know he’s got a tiger by the tail, but that it was grasped of his own will. Now he must suffer the consequences.

I’ve heard arguments along the lines of “why didn’t we do something about him when he was doing stuff against Israel and other nations?” Well, it’s because this “policeman of the world” role only goes so far, and while defense of an ally is one thing, justice and punishment regarding a crime against one’s own country is another. Targeting a US military installation or warship is one thing, targeting innocent civilians on American soil is another.

There is no more room for negotiating, placating, economic sanctioning or anything else. Bin-Laden has painted himself into a corner. And he and those who have aided, abetted and given sanctuary to him and his followers must suffer the consequences.

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good luck

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[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by k.os *
**

Welcome aboard MindWeb. Your posting style will be welcome here. [sub] and any friend of Ginger’s is a friend of mine :)[/sub]

I certainly do not understand the religious “reasoning” of terrorists. How could damning your self to eternal suffering be considered good no matter what your beliefs?