The SPR claims that no "sovereign" nation can be held accountable for the actions of Sept. 11, but I ask, what do they consider a sovereign nation? Of the over 150 governments in the world, only 3 had recognized the Taliban before the 11th-now that number has fallen to one.
Afghanistan is torn apart by a bloody civil war and is ruled by a totalitarian state that does not respect the fundamental civil rights of its people. Can a ruling body that is engaged in a civil war, unrecognized by the international community and loathed by its own people honestly be defined as a sovereign state?
CNN has recently aired a documentary chronicling a correspondent's travels through the Taliban-ruled Afghanistan. I challenge anyone in the SPR to watch that show and then tell me that the Taliban is a sovereign state worthy of our respect.
The Taliban denies religious freedom, denies women the right to read, forces women to endure sexual mutilation, kills women who make too much noise as they walk and indiscriminately murders men, not because they aren't Muslim, but because they come from a different ethnic group than the ruling Taliban. Is this the group of people that the SPR insists we would be "ill-advised" to attack?
The SPR has jumped into protest without reasoning through its argument or gathering the proper information. A majority of Afghani citizens clearly oppose the Taliban. If the Afghan people themselves are praying that we intervene, can our aiding them be that awful?
Three weeks have now passed since the Sept. 11 massacre, and the U.S. has taken little action. World opinion is decidedly behind the U.S.; a massive coalition has been built against Osama bin Laden and the Taliban, and the U.S. government has been carefully weighing its options. Is the care that we have taken in measuring our response truly ill-advised? Does the SPR think it's wiser than the United Nations, the European Union and other world organizations that have condemned these atrocities?
The SPR claims that the U.S. needs to reexamine its foreign policy. I wholeheartedly concur. It's time we ended our isolationism and aggressively went out into the world and let other nations know that we respect the value of human beings. The Taliban is against everything this nation stands for; they and their associates seek to destroy us. No one wants war, but there are people in this world that can't be reasoned with.
It has been said that if you see evil and do not stand up against it then you are no better than the perpetrator. This has never been truer than today. We see a great evil, not just to us but to humanity in general, and if we do not stand now for the ideas our nation is built on, we are no better than the Taliban. The SPR, by refusing to take a stand on the side of justice and humanity, has allied itself with the perpetrators of evil. The SPR may sit by idly and allow women to be mutilated and innocent people to be killed, but I, for one, will not.