Do we win by losing? ..Or lose by winning?

I've been hearing a lot of talk about "bombing Afghanistan back to the
>Stone
> Age." Ronn 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 hates the
>Taliban
> and Osama Bin Laden. 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 Taliban has 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 been done. The Soviets took care of it already.
>Make the
> Afghans suffer? They're already suffering. Level their houses? Done.
>Turn
> their schools into piles of rubble? Done. Eradicate their hospitals?
>Done.
> Destroy their infrastructure? Cut them off from medicine and health
>care? Too
> late. Someone already did all that.
>
> New bombs would only stir the rubble of earlier bombs. Would they at
>least
> get the Taliban? Not likely. In today's Afghanistan, only the Taliban
>eat,
> only they have the means to move around. They'd slip away and hide.
>Maybe
> the bombs would get some of those disabled orphans, they don't move too
>fast,
> they don't even have wheelchairs. But flying over Kabul and dropping
>bombs
> wouldn't really be a strike against the criminals who did this horrific
> thing. Actually it would only be making common cause with the
>Taliban--by
> raping once again the people they've been raping all this time.
>
> So what else is there? What can be done, then? Let me now speak with
>true
> fear and trembling. The only way to get Bin Laden is to go in there
>with
> ground troops. When people speak of "having the belly to do what needs
>to be
> done" they're thinking in terms of having the belly to kill as many as
> needed. Having the belly to overcome any moral qualms about killing
>innocent
> people. Let's pull our heads out of the sand.
>
> What's actually on the table is Americans dying. And not just because
>some
> Americans would die fighting their way through Afghanistan to Bin
>Laden's
> hideout. It's much bigger than that folks. Because to get any troops to
> Afghanistan, we'd have to go through Pakistan. Would they let us? Not
> likely. The conquest of Pakistan would have to be first. Will other
>Muslim
> nations just stand by? You see where I'm going. We're flirting with a
>world
> war between Islam and the West.
>
> And guess what: that's Bin Laden's program. That's exactly what he
>wants.
>
> That's why he did this. Read his speeches and statements. It's all
>right
> there. He really believes Islam would beat the west. It might seem
> ridiculous, but he figures if he can polarize the world into Islam and
>the
> West, he's got a billion soldiers. If the west wreaks a holocaust in
>those
> lands, that's a billion people with nothing left to lose, that's even
>better
> from Bin Laden's point of view. He's probably wrong, in the end the
>west
> would win, whatever that would mean, but the war would last for years
>and
> millions would die, not just theirs but ours. Who has the belly for
>that?
> Bin Laden does. Anyone else?
>
> Tamim Ansary
>
YES!!!!!!

Ask the victims of the holocaust if it was worth it. Ask the 6 million dead if peace with the nazi's is a cool, ubtainable idea. Certain people in history have made a pact with evil: Hitler, Napoleon,...as well as bin laden. This is good vs. Evil. Good will prevail. We must be smart, decisive, and willing to take evil out. The cost is worth it. Ask France.