Theos-Talk Archives (October 2001 Message tt00171)

At 09:57 AM 10/12/01 -0700, you wrote:
> Traders bring back eye-witness accounts of bombing
> Paul Gallagher In Peshawar
> The Scotsman (Scotland); October 11, 2001
> http://www.thescotsman.co.uk/index.cfm?id=115248&rware=PAUVQPCDVZJV&CQ_CUR_D
> OCUMENT=28
>
> Allied military action is hardening Afghan resistance towards West
The views in the article leave me a bit puzzled.
How could Afghan people possibly feel any worse
than they already do? They're living under one
of the darkest governments on the earth.

I would imagine that they'd feel relieved that
things were underway that might help end the
religious tyranny that controls their country
with an iron fist. Perhaps the Bosnians felt
that way when action was finally taken to help
end the Serb's oppression of them.

The country is controlled by Bin Laden. It is
against non-Islamic religions, with a death
penalty for things like teaching Christianity.
Consider the monstrous event earlier this year
when they destroyed the giant Buddhist statues.

It is anti-woman, with woman without the right
to learn to read and have education. (This is
only worse in some Arab nations where slavery
is still practiced.)

Members of other religions were starting to
be required to wear colored arm bands to
identify themselves. It is only a matter of
time until there would be, I think, an "ethnic
cleansing" of non-Moslems.

The people there might be cheering in the
streets, if they weren't afraid for their
lives.

Of course, there's the other aspect. Because
of the backward nature of the country and
the restricted access to information, the
people are readily manipulated through the
control of information and political and
religiously motivated misinformation.
They could have been indoctrinated in
terrible stories about how it is to live
in the west, in non-Islamic nations.

This is how the Chinese are still able to
maintain a rigid dictatorship and suppress
any popular movements. They control the
access to information, and manipulate it
to control the populace. As people get
better access to information and are better
educated, this won't work as well. Eventually,
they won't be able to get away with things
like the wholesale butchering of protesting
students, arrests and executions of dissidents,
and the fierce suppression of new religious
movements that show signs of popular acceptance.

As I see it, the Afghan people are severely
traumatized from Bin Laden's puppet government.
They would happily accept a religiously tolerant
rule that respects everyone, including women,
on an equal basis, and does not actively seek
weapons of mass destruction for immediate
use against western nations.

Bin Laden's group are religious fanatics
that want to kill us, not misguided but otherwise
nice people who only want to be treated better.
If we don't distinguish between most people,
whom are good-hearted, and the truly murderous,
by failing to take positive steps to stop them,
by our inaction, we become participants in their
future crimes. Say, next time, they destroy an
entire city -- say Dallas, London, or Paris.

I don't think that any of us want that blood on
our hands. We would be partly responsible if we
allow the killers to continue at their game,
continually going after bigger weapons to use
against the western world.

-- Eldon