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Mr. President:
I would like to commend you for your actions in response to the attacks on the United States last month. I agree with much of what you have done.
I am greatly troubled, however, by a statement you made at your October 11th news conference. You gave the Taliban regime of Afghanistan a chance to end the attacks on their nation by turning over the Al Qaeda leaders. I would like to strongly disagree with this course of action.
The Taliban has been harboring Bin Laden and Al Qaeda for several years now. During that time the US has publicly indicted Bin Laden for the attacks on our Embassies and the USS Cole. If I were to personally harbor an indicted murderer and keep him from facing justice, I would be guilty of a crime. The Taliban has been harboring a suspected murderer and they are guilty of a crime.
The Taliban has also committed grevious crimes against its own citizens. The kidnaping of men and older boys to fight in their military force, their crimes against women, and the starvation occurring in that country makes the Taliban government no better than several other governments the United States has ended in the past 100 years.
The greatest action the United States has performed last century was to stop the murder and genocide of the Jewish and Eastern European populations and the rape and oppression of the peoples of Asia. The second greatest action the United States performed was to rebuilt the three nations who committed those atrocities, and bring the people of those nations the freedoms that made the US the superpower it has become. In less than 50 years both Japan and Germany went from defeated nations to economic superpowers. If the US maintains the political will and guts to complete this action we can and will free the people of Afghanistan from the grip of religious fascism.
The United States, along with our allies Great Britain, must take responsibility for both ending the Taliban control of Afghanistan and replacing it with a democratic constitutional government. We should rebuild Afghan infrastructure, lease land for US military bases, and provide tax and tariff advantages for American companies to relocate some of their operations to Afghanistan. If we receive help from coalition partners then we should listen to their positions on the matter, and even give them a proportionate representation in the rebuilding and reconstruction process. What we should not do is turn over the fate of the new Afghanistan to the United Nations.
The United Nations is composed of nation-states that: murder non violent political dissidents (China - Member of the Security Council), support the slave trade (Sudan - Member of the _Human Rights_ council), or have sponsored terrorism (Syria - Voted this week to the UN Security Council). It does not deserve standing to reconstruct the government of Afghanistan. Finally it is the the United States and UK Armed forces, in conjunction with the Northern Alliance who are risking their lives to remove the Taliban. It is, in my opinion, an insult to those brave men and women to turn control of the results of this war over to the UN.
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Chris Farris Atlanta, GA |
