pynchon-l-digest V2 #2191

[mike j]

i agree with doug (did i just say that?) and want to
add another simple point to those made below: there
are no more targets in afghanistan to bomb. rumsfeld
said as much himself weeks ago. we have blown up their
planes, their military outposts (and not to mention
their ngo food relief reserves). the u.n. wants it to
stop. doctors w/o borders wants it to stop. let's
stop.there has to be a better way. 

---------------------------
rj/rjackson/jbor/?
>Did you actually read what those leaflets which the
U.S. planes dropped were
>saying to the Afghani people? We're on their side.

I guess the people believe the bombs, not the
leaflets. If we're on their
side,  why are we killing them and pursuing a policy
that will -- according
to the UN and all relevant international aid agencies
-- result in starving
millions of refugees to death?  With friends like
that, who needs enemies?
This is a wicked policy -- burn the village to save
it, rightly condemned
as criminal in Vietnam and everywhere else this sort
of total war has been
pursued.  Credible reports from journalists and other
observers in
Afghanistan and nearby -- as reported by a broad range
of mainstream
newspapers and news agencies around the world -- tell
us that the Afghan
people are terrified and bewildered beneath the US
attack that is
destroying their country and killing their wives,
children, parents --
people who are dying as the result of bombs and
missiles and bullets bought
and paid for by the American people.  It's possible
that some of those
people might have died as the result of Taliban
actions, but we can't know
that for sure-- on the other hand it's an absolute
certainty that the US
attack (backed by the UK, the rest of NATO and
coalition partners) has in
fact killed these individuals and has continued the
destruction begun by
the Russians, continued by the civil war, and now
completed by us.  A cry
went up around the world in the wake of September 11,
begging the US not to
pursue this kind of attack, given the fact that
Afghanistan, one of the
world's poorest countries, had already been devastated
by more than two
decades of war -- but Bush and his backers have
persisted.  It's been a
tragedywith, so far, no apparent military effect; the
Taliban are fighting
back and, according to a BBC report yesterday,
actually on the attack
against the so-called "Northern Alliance, while that
pack of corrupt and
cruel partisan foes of Taliban have yet to make a
move; and there's
certainly been no reduction in the terror here at
home.  Watching the news
on the Tube yesterday, it's obvious that confidence in
this military
adventure has been shaken at the highest level.  One
of the most powerful
Senators, Joe Biden, spoke one of the first truthful
sentences I've heard
recently, saying that the U.S. is beginning to look
like a high-tech bully
with this air attack.

rj/rjackson/jbor/?
>No-one wants Afghani refugees to starve this winter:
that's not the
>intention. It hasn't happened, it isn't likely to
happen, and it's
>ridiculous to argue as if it has happened.

If it's so ridiculous, why are the UN and other
international aid
organizations arguing so strenuously for a halt to the
attack so they can
get in and prevent it by beginning the aid shipments
that the US attack on
Afghanistan has halted or impeded? I suggest it's
because they, far closer
to the situation than any of us here, know what's
happening and know what's
needed to prevent this tragedy.

Here's a more humane solution:  stop the bombing,
start trucking in the aid
in amounts that will prevent the humanitarian tragedy
that is now in the
making, send in peace-keepers as necessary to protect
the refugees, foster
a dialogue between the various parties in Afghanistan
that want to form a
new government, continue investigation and police
action as necessary to
bring to justice (and not the summary execution in the
field that the Bush
Administration is said to favor) the perpetrators of
the Sep 11 attacks and
the perpetrators of the anthrax terrorism.


I said:
> Does Pynchon never answer the questions he raises?
> Seems to me he affirms a small set of positives
again and again
> in his writing:  love, community, family, respect
for the Earth,
> the continuity of life after death.

Otto:
> Ah, the last point . . . is said by the cynical
Wernher von Braun as the
> opening quote of GR and I don't believe that this is
meant to be seen in any
> way as the opinion of the author of the novel.

Good point, but the continuity of life after death is
seen throughout P's
work -- Mason communing with the spirit of his dead
wife in M&D;  the
Thanatoids in Vineland and the transition, at the end
of the novel, of
Brock Vond to the after-life; the seance in GR. I
don't have any idea what
Pynchon's personal ideas on the subject might be, but
the cosmology present
in his novels includes existence on both sides of the
life/death interface.


Cordially,
Doug





Doug Millison - Writer/Editor/Web Editorial Consultant
millison at online-journalist.com
www.Online-Journalist.com


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