Several versions of the following piece are making the e-rounds.  This is
the one that I got:

Afghans are citizens. Only a few are terrorists. An attack on Afghan
citizenry is likely to create support for and further justify terrorist
attacks on the USA.

Why haven’t Afghans overthrown the Taliban? They are starved, exhausted,
hurt, incapacitated, suffering.  A few years ago, the United Nations
estimated that there are 500,000 disabled orphans in Afghanistan. It is a
country with no economy or food, has suffered 3 years of drought, and
harbors millions of widows. The Taliban has buried widows alive in mass
graves. The soil is littered with land mines and their farms were destroyed
during Soviet occupation. The Afghan people do not have the resources to
overthrow anyone.

Instead, bomb Afghanistan with butter, wholesome food, music, celebration,
help, and kindness.  The cost would be much less than war and poses no
threat of US or Afghan casualties.

Bomb them with information: video players and cassettes of world leaders,
including Islamic, condemning terrorism, showing the horror of terrorism.
Blitz them with laptop computers, internet access to information, including
feminist equality in their language so that they can understand what the
Taliban does not want them to know. Bomb them with so much hope that the
Taliban can't confiscate and hide it all.

Humans rarely bite the hands that feed and entertain them. If we remove
their despair and ignorance, there is hope for peace and alignment that
accepts religious differences.

Compiled and edited from the writings of UC Berkeley professor Tamim Ansary,
Kent Madin, Bill Perk and Aajonus Vonderplanitz.

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Raw Food Diet Support List
> [mailto:[log in to unmask]]On Behalf Of Liza May
> Sent: Monday, September 24, 2001 9:15 PM
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Love Conquers All
>
>
> Hello Folks,
>
> I’ve been reading and thinking about my view of the situation in
> Afghanistan and I’ve consolidated my opinion, I think. First off, I
> continue to believe we have to make the price high to attack us. We have
> to destroy something material that the Taliban values highly. What that
> is, is hard to say. I think there is enough awareness in the
> Administration that a large loss of civilian life is not only
> counter-productive but inhumane.
>
> If they bomb what remains of Kabul, and/or other cities, I expect they
> will do so with lots of public warnings to the population of that city
> to vacate. Perhaps there are public buildings to be destroyed, I hope
> lots of them, and perhaps it can be done at night when they are
> unoccupied. The American public wants retribution, we have promised it,
> and it is consistent with the deterrent need to make the reprisal for
> killing our people hurt plenty. The deterrant goes not only to the
> Taliban but to Iraq and the other rogue states, to warn them of the
> consequences of taking in, shielding and supporting terrorist groups.
>
> But that in itself accomplishes little that is positive, in fact though
> I think it is necessary it is at the same time counter-productive. The
> main effort has to be, I think, “winning the hearts and minds” of the
> people. That, from what I read, was working well in Viet Nam, in spite
> of military disinterest, and may have “won that war” if we had hung in
> there. People were glad to escape from a harsh tyrannical regime to a
> protected area where they were treated with respect and put in charge of
> their own affairs. That is what those who were there organizing it,
> report.
>
> So my thought is a landing in some part of Afghanistan – perhaps up in
> the north where the little pocket of resistance still remains, or near
> the Pakistan border, where there are two million Afghani refugees, or
> both – and setting up a protected area. There we build housing, schools,
> hospitals, mosques, infra-structure (water, sanitation, roads, electric
> power) and bring in some light industry, like needlework shops to make
> clothes for export, sneakers, ceramics (plenty of sand). Teach people
> job skills and pay them. And treat them with decency. Put them in
> charge. But guarantee that we will stay there and protect them and keep
> channels open for refugees from the Taliban to come in. We and they can
> set up a democratic counter government and siphon off an oppressed
> population into a Muslim, but free, modern world.
>
> A Marshall Plan for a free Afghanistan!
>
> I think we have a life here far better than they have there. There are
> 1.3 billion Moslems in the world. I imagine that most of them are
> apolitical, would like to have a better standard of living, and to live
> in a free and democratic society. We must induce the sea of decent
> Moslems themselves to eject and expose that minority of Islamic
> fundamentalist, terrorist fish who swim in their sea.
>
> We can “win” this the right, decent way, by helping.