Thanks. Here is a LA Times link.

Post #10,276 by brettj 9/23/01 3:32:27 PM Reply	Thanks. Here is a LA Times link. [link\|http://www.charlotte.com/observer/natwor/docs/govern0923.htm\| Taliban alternative could be worse] Country's political future must be planned as carefully as war By PAUL WATSON Los Angeles Times PESHAWAR, Pakistan -- Endless war has reduced Afghanistan to ruin and has killed or forced out so many millions of people that only the desperate and the extreme remain. It is a country suffering a critical shortage of credible leaders. If a U.S.-led force were to attack Afghanistan and the ruling Taliban movement became the latest in a succession of regimes to fall, it would stir up a cesspool of drugs, guns and terror that could only be avoided if the country's political future were mapped out as carefully as the targets of war, experts here warn.
Post #10,298 by dmarker2 9/23/01 9:47:02 PM Reply	Re: And therein lies the biggest dilemma Taliban toughness brought some stability to Afghanistan. Same is happening in Somalia. When these tough Islamic & Sharia law rulers are removed, they are usually replaced by drug dealing feuding warlords (in these depressed countries). Also Brett, in the initial post in this thread you mention that 'Bin Laden wants to take over Afghanistan'. Truth is that Bin Laden (thru Taliban) already had taken over Afghanistan & achieved his goal of using this as a springboard training ground for movements being set up to do same in other former Soviet states bordering Afghansitan & incl Pakistan & Indonesia & including northern China. Problem for us is that, as you say, he hates US because they are stationed in Saudi - home of Mecca. Bin Laden is not a cleric nor does he lead the Muslim faith. For that reason he has no right to call a fatwa against US. Bin Laden is an evil enemy of the US who wilst not having his finger on the actual trigger, is providing the infrastructure to train the trigger pullers who do the actual deeds & fullfil his desire to attack the US. Any normal Muslim would never recite the following ... Allah and the Kor'an permits us to murder unarmed airline passengers Allah and the Ko'ran permits us to murder unsuspecting women and children Allah and the Ko'ran permits us to murder other muslims working in or visiting US target sites Allah and the Ko'ran permits us to murder non-US visitors & workers to US target sites Allah and the Ko'ran permits us to murder Jews working or visiting US target sites BUT - a good number of Muslims put it differently - they say America got what it had coming !!! - anyone saying that should be asked to recite the above because truth is, that is what they seem to be saying when they argue that the attacks were in the slightest way justifiable..... Cheers Doug Marker
Post #10,307 by brettj 9/23/01 10:37:11 PM Reply	This is starting to look like a Hitler repeat? Where some hate-filled person declares death to other groups of people. Hitler feed off of the poverty of the people he brain-washed. The similarites are errie and morbid. P.S. Thanks for mentioning that bin Laden already "rules" Afghanistan. His victory over the Russian has emboldened him significantly when fighting super-powers and poor countries alike.
Post #10,654 by CRConrad 9/27/01 3:32:17 AM Reply	Uh, that's not how it was, is it? Brett Jayess writes: ...bin Laden already "rules" Afghanistan. His victory over the Russian has emboldened him significantly... Osama bin Laden didn't beat the Russians. I don't think even the Taliban did, before he came to them. What the Taliban have won is the civil war in Afghanistan, that got going after the Afghanis had kicked out the Russians -- once the common enemy was no longer there to unite them, the widely disparate factions inevitably turned on each other. My own guess would be, the Taliban probably won this too pretty much without bin Laden's help -- sure, he may have contributed money for guns, but I've seen no reports that he's much of a guerilla leader; just a terrorist leader and agitator pandering to the more or less illiterate (and the difference is rather large, I think). Who beat the Russians, if you want to attach that feat to a single name (which of course isn't really possible), was probably more than anyone else -- and, deeply ironically -- Ahmed Shah Massoud, the leader of the "Northern Alliance" that got bumped off by assassins -- apparently working for bin Laden -- just days before the attack in the US. At least Massoud's was the name you heard most of on the news, when Afghanistan was mentioned (and the fight against the Soviets was still going on), for most (at least the second half) of the eighties -- long before anyone had heard of this bin Laden character. Right? Christian R. Conrad The Man Who Knows Fucking Everything

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