For those of you who would turn Afghanistan into a parking lot

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Afghans prepare for possibility of U.S. attacks

By AMIR SHAH, Associated Press

KABUL, Afghanistan (September 14, 2001 10:09 a.m. EDT ) - Amid growing fears of a U.S. military attack, war-weary Afghans - accustomed to years of deprivation stemming from Soviet invasion, civil war and the rise of the radical Taliban - resigned themselves Friday to the possibility of more bloodshed.

"We have suffered so much. Every night so many children go to bed hungry," said Zalmai, a teacher who like many Afghans uses only one name. "What do we have to live for? Let the rockets come and set this whole country on fire once and for all."

Afghanistan, where civil war has claimed tens of thousands of lives in recent decades, is a likely target of U.S. retaliation because its Taliban rulers provide shelter to Osama bin Laden, the prime suspect in this week's terror attacks in New York.

In Afghanistan and the rest of the Muslim world during the Islamic Sabbath on Friday, reaction to the attacks ranged from joy to sorrow to raw fear.

In the Pakistani city of Peshawar on Friday, several hundred people emerged from a mosque shouting "jehad!" or holy war, and shouted pro-Afghanistan slogans.

Other Muslims expressed deep sorrow for what was the worst act of terrorism in U.S. history.

"As a Muslim, I am very concerned that these terrible things might have been committed by other Muslims," said Mohamed Rahman Noordin, a 35-year-old banker in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. "But whoever did it, I consider them traitors to Islam."

"Whoever has done this is not from any religion. He is not Muslim, even if he says he is. He is an animal," said Shabiz Ahmed Syedqui, a 42-year-old Muslim salesman leaving Friday prayers at the largest mosque in New Delhi, India.

With Islamic fundamentalists emerging as the main suspects in Tuesday's attacks, officials around the world sought to stem a backlash against Muslims that has featured numerous attacks, including one in Brisbane, Australia, overnight Thursday in which two Molotov cocktails were thrown at a mosque.

Speaking before the British Parliament, Prime Minister Tony Blair said the culprits in the terror attacks "do not speak or act for the vast majority of decent, law-abiding Muslims throughout this world.

"I say to our Arab and Muslim friends, neither you nor Islam is responsible for this," Blair said.

Fallout from the terror attacks is likely to be felt in Afghanistan more than any other foreign land. Here, some expressed the kind of rage that may have led to the terror attacks in the first place.

"Any enemy of the Muslims will be punished by God," said Imam Mohammed Muslim Haqqani during Friday prayers at a mosque in the Afghan capital of Kabul. "The United States and Israel are enemies of Islam."

Such sentiments are also common in neighboring Pakistan, where Islamic fundamentalists enjoy widespread popularity despite a government that has promised to cooperate with Washington in the fight against terrorism.

"Allah intensified the fire and destruction of those planes," said prayer leader Maulana Abdul Aziz at a mosque in the Pakistani capital of Islamabad, explaining why two hijacked planes were able to turn New York's World Trade Center into rubble.

Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf faces a tough decision. He can promise full cooperation with Washington and risk the wrath of Muslim fundamentalists at home, or refuse to cooperate and infuriate Washington.

Afghanistan's ruling Taliban face a similar dilemma. If they hand over bin Laden, they risk angering thousands of foreign fighters who are indispensable in their war against a northern-based alliance. If they continue to harbor bin Laden, they risk a full-scale attack by the world's most powerful army.

For now, the Taliban are refusing to produce bin Laden unless Washington provides convincing evidence of guilt.

On Friday, foreign aid workers continued to stream out of the country. The flow of refugees out of Afghanistan - already high because of drought and civil war - has intensified since Tuesday's attacks.

link



-- Betsy Ross (Red White @nd .blue), September 14, 2001

Answers

There are many there who oppose Osama and the Taliban: link

-- Betsy Ross (Red White @nd .blue), September 14, 2001.

Bomb the government, bomb Osama, don't bomb civilians (intentionally)

-- Lars (lars@indy.net), September 14, 2001.

"...unless Washington provides convincing evidence of guilt"

-- WTF (nuke@the.bastars), September 14, 2001.

Even if we are able to eradicate Bin Laden, there are plenty more rabid Moslems willing to take his place. Until the "infidels" (non-Moslems) are totally removed from what they consider their Holy Lands, they will never stop.

What Does Osama Bin Laden Want?

Nothing we have.

By David Plotz

Osama Bin Laden

To no one's surprise, Secretary of State Colin Powell today named Osama Bin Laden as a prime suspect in Tuesday's attacks. Bin Laden's brutal record is well known. The United States indicted him for masterminding the 1998 bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. The Saudi fugitive was also reportedly connected to the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, the 1993 killing of American soldiers in Somalia, mid-'90s bombings of U.S. facilities in Saudi Arabia, and the 2000 attack on the USS Cole. Authorities have prevented Bin Laden associates from launching attacks during the millennium celebrations, bombing a dozen trans-Pacific flights in 1995, and assassinating the pope and President Clinton in the Philippines.

This is what Bin Laden does. But why does he do it? What does he want?

Bin Laden is the most notorious advocate of a potent strain of militant Islam that has been gaining popularity in the Muslim world for 30 years. It is simultaneously theological and cultural. Its fundamental tenet is that the Muslim world is being poisoned and desecrated by infidels. These infidels include both outsiders such as the United States and Israel, and governments of Muslim states—such as Egypt and Jordan—that have committed apostasy. The infidels must be driven out of the Muslim world by a jihad, and strict Islamic rule must be established everywhere that Muslims live. These extreme "Islamists," as Bin Laden biographer Yossef Bodansky dubs them, hope to re-establish the Caliphate, the golden age of Muslim domination that followed the death of Muhammad. They regard the Taliban's Afghanistan as a model for such Islamic rule.

This Islamist militancy has ancient roots—Saladin's expulsion of the crusaders in the 12th century is one starting point—but it was galvanized in the 1970s by several events. The growing influence of secular Western capitalism in the Muslim world, the military triumphs of Israel, and the Russian invasion of Afghanistan horrified Islamic traditionalists. The Afghanistan invasion was the culminating moment: It persuaded Bin Laden and thousands of others of the need for Islamic holy war. Their fervor has only increased since, fueled by the Palestinian intifada, the Gulf War, the American operation in Somalia, and other conflicts of Islam with the West.

(The Islamists are not merely Pan-Arab but Pan-Islamic. Bin Laden is exceptional in his ability to recruit from all over the Muslim world. The Sunni Muslim world, that is. Bin Laden and his allies follow a very strict Sunni Islam.)

That is Bin Laden's general philosophy. What is his particular grievance against the United States? According to CNN's Peter Bergen, author of a forthcoming book on Bin Laden, Holy War, Inc., Bin Laden is most enraged by the American military presence in Saudi Arabia. Bin Laden was incensed when the Saudis invited U.S. troops to their defense after the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. Bin Laden—like many Muslims—considers the continued presence of these armed infidels in Saudi Arabia the greatest possible desecration of the holy land. That is why he sponsored bombings of the American military facilities in Saudi Arabia, why he has tried to destabilize the Saudi government, and why the embassies in Kenya and Tanzania were bombed on Aug. 7, 1998—eight years to the day after the first American troops were dispatched to Saudi Arabia.

Bin Laden is also furious about American support for Israel. He detests Jews and views the United States as the Jewish lackey. ("[Jews] believe that all humans are created for their use, and they found that the Americans are the best-created beings for that use," Bin Laden has said.) His supporters seem particularly exercised by Israel's reaction to the current intifada, Bergen says. Bin Laden also can't tolerate American alliances with moderate Arab governments in Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and Kuwait.

Mainstream Muslims denounce Bin Laden's bloody-mindedness—in 1998 he issued a fatwa calling for attacks on all Americans—but he has found plenty of firebrand clerics to offer Quranic backing for his belief that terrorism is glorious. According to Bodansky, these mullahs insist that all methods of war, including terrorism, are justified in the battle against the infidels. (Bin Laden, holding up a Quran, puts it this way: "You cannot defeat the heretic with this book alone. You have to show them the fist.")

Bin Laden has strategic reasons to believe in terrorism, too. The Muslim victory over the Soviet Union in Afghanistan showed him that superpowers are not so superpowerful. And the ignominious American withdrawal from Somalia—following a Bin Laden connected attack—convinced him that the United States is morally weak. The U.S. soldier is "a paper tiger" who crumples after "a few blows."

It is a mistake to assume that killing Bin Laden means killing his movement. It's true that Bin Laden is an iconic leader who inspires his followers and millions of sympathizers in the Muslim world. But eliminating Bin Laden would do nothing to decrease the intensity of the other militant Islamists. The Afghan war created a cadre of warriors and belligerent clerics who are constantly recruiting. Bin Laden has a core of highly trained aides ready to continue his work. His trainees are scattered in two dozen countries. It is hard to imagine how the United States could neutralize all of them. And attacks on Bin Laden have only increased his popularity: Killing him would likely rally many more Muslims to his cause.

(Some pundits have suggested that killing Bin Laden would be effective because it would stanch the flow of cash to terrorists. This may not be so. Bin Laden's groups do get funds from his personal fortune, but they also finance operations by dunning wealthy Gulf Arabs and by siphoning off donations to Muslim charities. And the terror organization is cheap. They don't use heavy weapons, and it costs almost nothing to house and train hundreds of men in Afghanistan.)

Is there anything we can do to persuade Bin Laden to stop? The terror groups Americans are familiar with—Palestinian bombers and hijackers, IRA hard men—have desires we understand. They perform acts of terror in order to gain sympathy or sow fear. That sympathy or fear is a means to their end: political recognition, a state, compensation. They seek to participate in our world.

But Bin Laden and his followers are alarming because they don't want anything from us. They don't want our sympathy. They want no material thing we can offer them. They don't want to participate in the community of nations. (They don't really believe in the nation-state.) They are motivated by religion, not politics. They answer to no one but their god, so they certainly won't answer to us.

The 44-year-old Bin Laden, as you probably know, is one of 50 children of a Saudi billionaire. (He made his fortune in construction. Among his projects: the tallest skyscraper in the Middle East.) After what seems to have been a playboy youth—drinking and womanizing in Lebanon—Bin Laden was radicalized in his early 20s, first by university professors, then by the Russian invasion of Afghanistan. He became an ardent believer in the Islamic struggle against infidels. During the Afghan war, Bin Laden used his own vast fortune (estimated at $250 million, but no one really knows) and money raised from Gulf Arabs to fund the mujahideen. He may or may not have fought himself, but he certainly recruited thousands of young Muslims from all over the Middle East to the cause.

Since the early '90s, Bin Laden has run al-Qaida ("The Base"), which CNN's Peter Bergen, author of the forthcoming Holy War, Inc., describes as a kind of "holding company" for Islamic militants. According to Bergen, Bin Laden has an inner circle of several hundred followers who have sworn him loyalty oaths. Several thousand men, perhaps as many as 10,000, have trained as soldiers and terrorists in Bin Laden's camps in Afghanistan and Sudan. These men populate and run militant Islamic groups in almost every country with a significant Muslim population, everywhere from Bosnia to Algeria to Chechnya to Indonesia. Bin Laden has been sheltered by the Taliban since Sudan expelled him in 1996. He has given the Taliban millions of dollars in aid.

It is not clear how much control Bin Laden has over his followers or over the acts of terror attributed to him. The best guesses are that Bin Laden has financed most if not all of these terrorist acts, and that his top aides had some kind of operational control over them.



-- News (Hound@CcurrentEvents.com), September 14, 2001.


damn, I hate when that happens!

-- Moving (Too@Fast.com), September 14, 2001.


Let me put it another way.

If someone hated the extremists here, and could bomb Unk's, don't you think the humane thing to do would be to kill just the extremists?

I know this is cliche', but for you professed "Christians" who are saying "kill 'em all"!, what would Jesus do if he were president?

-- Betsy Ross (Red White @nd .blue), September 14, 2001.


Actually, we have no plans to turn Afghanistan into a parking lot. After careful consideration, we have decided to round up all of the world’s Muslim Extremists and deposit them inside the borders of this wasteland. Utilizing the vast resources of the U.S. and our allies, we will seal off the borders and prohibit ANYBODY or ANYTHING from entering or leaving.

This will be done after we have sent a good deal of them to the ‘Virgin Garden Party’ they so covet.

-- Your (Supreme@Commander.com), September 14, 2001.


Great thinking, 'O Fearless Leader.

Please proceed :]

-- Betsy Ross (Red White @nd .blue), September 14, 2001.


Afghanistan News

-- 234 (123#@@#$.1234), March 17, 2002.

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