On 5 Aug 2002 at 13:47, Hermit wrote:
>
> People who have not traveled in the Southern republics and discovered
> for themselves how positively feudal they remain in their isolated
> areas cannot comprehend them. If my descriptions of Afghanistan
> seemed alien to you, they were like the street outside your house,
> compared to these areas.
>
> This is a world where the only telephone in a town of 15'000 is likely
> to be in the police station. And it probably doesn't work. In those
> wastelands, technology doesn't avail much, and when it breaks, there
> is nobody to repair it. A world where the word of the mayor is more
> powerful than any central authority - and where the mayor is more
> likely to owe his allegiance to a criminal group than to anyone else.
> A world where every stranger entering a village is likely to be an
> enemy - or possibly a hostage to demand ransom for. A world where more
> people live in tightly knit family groups, that migrate on a weekly
> basis, follow no roads, owe no allegiance to any one but their
> seniors, and recognize no borders, than do in the villages. A world
> where disagreements are settled by a knife in the night, and family
> feuds can run for countless generations. A world where an AK47, or an
> ounce of gold counts more than a uniform, an authorization or a court.
> A world where, at the height of!
> Soviet power, a government owned truck might pass by the villages
> once a week. Today, that might be every few months. Or never. A world
> where there are no checkpoints, no credit cards, no banks, no bottled
> water, no roads, no paper trails. A world where you can travel 300 km
> in any direction - without seeing a soul, crossing a road, or coming
> across a village. Yet know that your every step has been watched. For
> this is a world where not even a mouse can move without a somebody
> seeing it, and passing the word, for prestige, for honor, for gold,
> for his life. A world that the men of the wastes and the mountains
> comprehend, but where not even the KGB ventures except in large
> numbers - never mind the "We don't do diarrhea - or intelligence" CIA
> or the "We don't do mountains" Mountain Rangers. A world far beyond
> any law you would recognize - and likely alien far beyond your
> imagination.
>
In that case, it is alien to Arabs, too. But if we find that Bin Laden is
ensconsced in any one of those countries, we will go get him, with the
government's blessing, however relevant it may be, and enough
firepower to be the big dog no matter what porch of pooches we may
find there, as well as enough drone and satellite surveillence to insure
that not a sparrow falls but that we know about it.
>
> Hermit
>
> ----
> This message was posted by Hermit to the Virus 2002 board on Church of
> Virus BBS.
> <http://virus.lucifer.com/bbs/index.php?board=51;action=display;thread
> id=25957>
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