Fw: Nobel laureate says US strikes on Afghanistan "as despicable" as Sep

Egypt's Nobel Prize-winning author Naguib Mahfouz has called the war on
terrorism being waged in Afghanistan "just as despicable a crime" as the
September 11 attacks in the United States.

"Of course we grieved for the thousands of innocent civilians whose lives
were destroyed on 11 September. But the so-called war on terrorism is just
as despicable a crime," Mahfouz said in an interview published Thursday by
the English-language Al-Ahram weekly.

"A million innocent Afghans will die if the bombardment does not stop,"
said the author and winner of the 1998 Nobel for literature.

"While the group that carried out the September 11 attack showed utter
disregard for any law or standard or decency, now we find a major world
power doing the same," he said.

Mahfouz said that America had "every means to make a sensible decision
and, while folly is understandable in the case of extremists whose
punishment nobody opposes, it is hardly acceptable coming from the
superpower par excellence."

"America must study the problem carefully to discern the nature of and
reasons for terrorism," he continued.

"What we witnesses in New York and Washington is a symptom of the illness
referred to as terrorism; and as is current in medical wisdom, it is
impossible to eradicate the symptoms before curing the illness.

"Bombing innocent civilians ... is simply an exercise of military power
and America has this in abundance, allowing it to contribute to the
factors causing terrorism rather than attacking its roots.

"Its actions now even give terrorism additional justification," he
concluded.

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