Communication

Communication

Contributions from readers who didn't object to having their email published in Vagabond Pages.

Taliban ..., Re: "Nobody Talks" (This issue) ..., American Financial Crisis ...

Sometimes I don't receive an answer to my request to publish a letter and I don't know how to interpret it. So I've decided to simplify things and not oblige readers to answer. The most recent letters are at the top of the page.
If you have written to Vagabond and were not published or acknowledged, be informed that we are experiencing some email difficulties. Please try again at our Vagabond Pages address or at our hotmail address WM

Taliban

Hello William
In your articles about Afghanistan, as far as I can remember, you don't mention the Taliban, the biggest problem and perpetrator of the conflict. For me, the conflicts in Afghanistan, Iraq and the Middle East are not political but express an ideology between freedom and lack of freedom.
Bigner Brown

The Taliban is a fundamentalist organization but in that part of the world everybody is fundamentalist even if the details vary. Whole societies live in the shadow of religion. The only difference displayed by the Taliban in Afghanistan and the Kurds in Iraq is that national issues and religious issues mix, even if for the Taliban religion remains issue number one. The Kurds want separation from Iraq and the Taliban concentrates on Pashtun and Pashtunistan which in fact leads to separation. Practically all the Pashtun want separation and they may outnumber the Taliban. I don’t like this cocktail of ideology and politics covering the real topic which is independence. There were many ideologically provoked conflicts in history: The Crusades, the religious wars in Europe … Today, the Islamists, the right wing Zionists, the conservative Christians, have God on their shield. For the Nazis, race, for the left wing, class, are the main issues. In reality, national interests were and remain the main issue. Purely ideological wars never gave results. I don’t remember any wars launched to get schools for children and rights for women abroad. Even freedom for slaves wasn’t the main issue of the American Civil War. WM

Re: "Nobody Talks" (This Issue)

Dear William
You wrote that nobody considers Ossetians and Abkhazians. I associate it with the condition of women. In many cultures women are treated like negligible entities. Recently at the airport I saw a family of Hassidic Jews, husband, wife, teenage daughter and a few smaller boys. The girl was tall, skinny, dressed in a long dress with long sleeves that hid everything but her face. Her hair wasn't styled. It's hard to say if she was pretty or not. My husband said to me, "When she's old enough she'll marry a Hassid chosen by her father." I answered him, "She'll share the fate of millions of women throughout the world."
Warm greetings
Agnes
(Email withheld by request)

American Financial Crisis

I know nothing about economics and financing. The only thing I know clearly about the crisis comes from Nicholas Sarkozy, for me a master of simplification, who said that errors of such scope should be considered and punished as crime. Whoever wants to participate in the debate, may I suggest that a limit 600 words will be welcomed. WM

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