First, save the starving in Afghanistan

If the best way to one man's heart is through his stomach, as mothers have told their daughters for centuries, surely, then, the best way to the hearts of millions of Afghans must be through their starving bellies.
By addressing the looming humanitarian catastrophe, the United States can demonstrate to the world that its war is not with the people of Afghanistan but with a regime that would rather grow opium poppies than food crops, would rather stone women than allow them to bake bread and would rather build terrorism than infrastructure.
President Bush's call for $320 million in humanitarian aid for the Afghan people and neighboring states & quot;in a time of crisis and in a time of need & quot; is right action to take. There will still be time to go after the Taliban and Osama bin Laden's murderous gang.
President's affirmation: & quot;America will stand strong and will oppose the sponsors of terror, and America will stand strong to help those people who are hurt by those regimes, & quot; he told employees in a visit to the State Department.
As Afghanistan's harsh winter approaches, hundreds of thousands of refugees fleeing to their country's borders to escape the war they are sure will come -- or just to get away from the Taliban's brutality -- will have neither shelter nor food nor medicine. The stress on surrounding countries such as Pakistan, Iran, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan will be virtually insurmountable without international aid.
Particularly because little of the Islamic world knows about the billions of dollars in humanitarian aid Americans and America have long sent throughout the world, it is important for Islamic nations to experience first-hand the generosity of the American people.
Caution: However, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld's announcement Thursday that the Pentagon is planning to airdrop relief supplies into Afghanistan should be cause for concern. Unless the distribution of food or medical supplies is carefully controlled, we have no doubt that either the Taliban or bin Laden's gang will appropriate the aid for their own purposes. Based on their avowed hatred of all things American and their easy rationalizations of killing the innocent to achieve their goals, we would be concerned that the sources of evil in Afghanistan would have no qualms about even poisoning the food if such action would advance their cause.
The Taliban has already demonstrated that the women and children of Afghanistan are expendable commodities. Girls and women are forbidden education. Women are denied the opportunity for employment, even widows who have no means to feed their children. Women who appear in public without covered ankles are whipped. Those who dare to paint their fingernails have their fingers cut off.
Those Americans who oppose our intervention in Afghanistan should try to imagine a nation where music is forbidden, where playing with birds results in the "perpetrators" being imprisoned and the birds killed, where carrying "objectionable literature is ground for execution and even kite-flying has been banned.
Those who support the Taliban and bin Laden see imposing such beliefs throughout the world as their mission. Even Muslims who oppose them are marked for death
The impoverished and destitute people of Afghanistan do not deserve to die for the barbarian philosophy of their leaders. Neither do the people of the United States. We are strong enough to make peace and where necessary to make war.