This is relatively irrelavent but thought you might enjoy it...of course...it is made up...just like everything else forwarded on the internet none of these people actually exist...

-----Original Message-----
From: Gang, Lisa 
Sent: Wednesday, September 19, 2001 11:37 AM
To: Williams III, Bill
Subject: FW: Important insight into our crisis




-----Original Message-----
From: Drager, Kevin [mailto:KDrager@idacorpenergy.com]
Sent: Tuesday, September 18, 2001 1:36 PM
To: Gang, Lisa
Subject: FW: Important insight into our crisis


Lisa,

Just wanted to send this so you could look at it soon.  I'll send
another e-mail later.

Kevin

-----Original Message-----
From: Drager, Kevin 
Sent: Tuesday, September 18, 2001 1:59 PM
To: _Scheduler; Olson, Scott
Subject: FW: Important insight into our crisis




-----Original Message-----
From: Johnson, Robyn 
Sent: Tuesday, September 18, 2001 12:57 PM
To: Drager, Kevin
Subject: FW: Important insight into our crisis




-----Original Message-----
From: Jean Cheney [mailto:cheney@utahhumanities.org]
Sent: Monday, September 17, 2001 2:26 PM
To: Natasha Saje; Lisa Bickmore; Sandy Anderson; Charles Davidson;
scottcheney@earthlink.net; Kate Cheney; sunray@alltel.net
Subject: Important insight into our crisis



> >-----Original Message-----
> >From: TPElie@aol.com [mailto:TPElie@aol.com]
> >Sent: Monday, September 17, 2001 4:51 AM
> >To: SnagIt6391@aol.com
> >Subject: a rare bit of intelligence on the coming war
> >
> >
> >
> >This is from an Afghani-American scholar, Tamim Ansary, whom friends
of
> >friends at the World Bank and in the academy respect immensely.  This
is
his
> >take on
> >Afghanistan and the whole mess we are careening into, and I think it
merits
> >serious thought.  Pass it along if you know folks who might want to
ponder
> >this addition to the national conversation.
> >Tim
> >********
> >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
> >
>
>
> Max Harris, Executive Director
> Wisconsin Humanities Council
> 222 S. Bedford Street
> Madison
> WI 53703
> Phone: 608/262-0706
> Fax: 608/263-7970
> Email: MRHARRI1@FACSTAFF.WISC.EDU
>
>