Dominique -

I'm so glad to hear that others were disturbed by President Bush's speech on
Thursday Evening.  As I listened I had hoped to hear that they KNEW who it
was and that they had a concrete action plan to bring that individual(s) to
justice.  But all I heard was rhetoric for supporting an upcoming large
military action.  I was also very worried about how these demands will make
us (as a nation) look and if we are not stepping onto the same road followed
by dictators and totalitarian regimes to conquer, control, and justify their
killing.  I don't want us to march down that path too.  Yes, I instantly
wanted the government to do something, but now I'm thinking more and saying
how do we stop terrorists without becoming one ourselves.  And I believe
that bombing Afghanistan is doing just that, we will kill the innocent and
then justify ourselves by saying we are stopping the "bad" men of the world.
And if history has taught us anything it should be that just because you get
rid of one terrorist or "bad" man, you don't get rid of them all and all to
often your actions martyr this madmen and create more followers.

Thanks for letting me vent a little worry and frustration
Tracie

----- Original Message -----
From: Dominique Rogers <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Friday, September 21, 2001 6:13 AM
Subject: Afghanistan Re: [Re: article: Sep.11 & the nature of museum
mission]


> I agree That the list is not an appropriate place for this discussion,
> and I will make this answer short.  I had passed on this document
> because hearing President Bush speeches worries me.  The
> museum community is supposed to thrive on objectivity and
> perhaps we can spread this objectivity.  The person who rather
> roughly questioned the origin of the document missed the point, I
> had deleted the person who had sent it to me as he is not involved
> in the museum world; he is a friend I have known for 25 years, he is
> an Indian citizen (religion Parsi). I do not know who Pete is and
> does it really matter?  Even if this letter was the fruit of somebody's
> imagination it still moved me to tears.  I spent some time in
> Afghanistan before the Russian invasion and loved and admired its
> people for their tolerance (by the way I am Jewish).  I had a stop
> over in Kabul in 1981 during the Russian occupation and could not
> recognize anything, it was already rubble then.  I do not believe
> that any reconstruction has taken place since then...And as 'being
> in the UK' does this mean that I do not understand about terrorism?
> Bombs have been one of the foremost concern of museums in the
> uk for a while (30 years?) and having your bag systematically
> searched when going to museums is part of life, as is alerting the
> Police as soon as you see an unattended package or walking on
> the other side of the pavement near army recruiting offices or not
> giving your address or the one of your institution on an open forum
> to not figure on anybody's black list. I will not mention where the
> money feeding our local terrorists has mostly come from, This is
> already much too long and i will be happy to discuss the topic at
> length off the list with anybody who wants to.
> My name is Dominique Rogers I am an objects conservator I have
> been a rather quiet member of this list for I think around 3 years. I
> live in England. and ... I am afraid...
> Date sent:              Thu, 20 Sep 2001 16:26:43 -0400
> Send reply to:          Museum discussion list <MUSEUM-
> [log in to unmask]>
> From:                   "Sweeney, Ginger"
> <[log in to unmask]>
> Subject:                Re: [Re: article: Sep.11 & the nature of museum
> mission]
> To:                     [log in to unmask]
>
> I certainly don't believe that is what this individual is saying. Bin
> laden wants money and power. It seems like we'll be fighting this
> "war"
> on computers - with businesses - with bank accounts. Isn't that
> better
> (and definitely more sane) than killing our fellow man/woman/child?
> Thank you to whomever sent this out - it's an interesting look from
> another perspective.
> My question is this - what can we (as individuals who work in museums)
> do about much of any of this? It seems that a Museum discussion list is
> not really an appropriate venue for this kind of debate.
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: PATRICIA MCDOUGALL [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
> Sent: Thursday, September 20, 2001 4:16 PM
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: [Re: article: Sep.11 & the nature of museum mission]
>
>
> So he's saying do nothing because a war is what bin laden wants?
>
> Dominique Rogers <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> Subject: Afghanistan - please read this
>
> > Following on from my earlier email, here's the flip side. You
> have to
> > hear
> both sides of an argument in order to form an opinion - I hope
> this helps.
> > > Pete > > ========================= > > The
> following was sent by Tamim
> Ansary.  Tamim is an Afghani-American writer. Here is his take
> on
> Afghanistan and the whole mess we are in. > > 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. 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 >
>
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