I have an Iranian acquaintance. He is a man of letters. Some months ago he told me that back inTehran he had heard of a saying among Tehranites in verse which he liked very much:

Sitting at my desk this morning, and ruminating about recent events in our small world and especially about the 'guest' of the Taleban regime in Afghanistan, I was reminded of that verse. How so very true, I said to myself?

This is a rough translation of that verse: A guest is very dear but like our precious breath, it will suffocate us if he comes and does not go back to where he came from.

I have been thinking of Osama bin Laden (literal meaning: Osama son of Laden), this dubious friend of Afghanistan, who is supposed to have fought alongside our brave and determined nation against the Soviet Union's invasion of our country. He has stayed on without actually being invited to remain and make Afghanistan his permanent home. And so doing, he has become the major reason for the United States and many other countries to make the false assumption that Afghanistan is the country and Afghans, the nation, that has harbored him and given him a chance to carry on activities against the United States and, more so, that he has master-minded the inhuman, murderous attacks of September 11 upon the World Trade Center in New York.

Several times before, I have expressed a fervent desire that Taleban should ask Osama to call it quits and go back to his original home in Saudi Arabia or anywhere else.

But it seems that Taleban have been mindful of his help in Afghanistan's war with the Soviet Union and would not ask him to go. And now their sense of appreciation of his past service has backfired. The entire Afghan nation is in an unprecedented situation of having to bear the anger and retaliation of the greatest super-power in the world and its determination to take care of Osama once for all at any cost. A nation tired of war is once again facing the threat of yet another and a more ominous war, not of their making, but brought about by an unwanted guest.

The US must have a reason to believe that what happened in New York had the signature mark of Osama, a person wanted to be brought to justice for his earlier crimes. The death of over five thousand innocent human beings in New York, together with the financial effect of this heinous deed upon the US --and, indeed, the world economy, was the last straw that made the search for Osama of utmost necessity.

This is where the Afghans stand at present. The prolonged stay of Taleban's 'guest' has now become the real threat to them, and perhaps, the Afghan nation's existence.

I, for one, would like to see justice be done. Let the courts do their legitimate study of Osama's case wherever and whenever his infamous deeds have occurred. Let the courts pronounce a judgement upon him that he deserves. But please do not attempt to destroy what is left of a helpless, hopeless nation and a country that has seen nothing but war, destruction and annihilation in the last two decades and more.

The US has the means and can utilize them to get their man with little loss of innocent lives. Someone has said it is not wise to equate the fate of one man with that of over twenty millions of a people who seem to have no say--under conditions of the nonexistence of a democratic system of government--in what transpires around them, and a nation endlessly involved in a useless factional civil war.

September 22, 2001