quote:
Originally posted by Silver Cheetah:
How does decimating the Taliban and Afghani civilians make America safe against terrorism? Getting rid of the Taliban is attractive for a number of other reasons, but let's just be practical here. You get rid of a very bad government, and (hopefully!) put the mechanisms in place to replace it with a better coalition government and back it up with aid. All well and good. The Taliban might have provided a base for Osama, but they never funded him. More the other way round, it seems to me.
Cutting off money supplies to terrorist organisations as is being done (as far as possible - obviously many holes will remain unplugged) seems a far more useful tactic, in the long run, than bombing a country.
Yes, you will say, our bombing of the Taliban will deter states all over the world who have previously funded terrorist groups from continuing to fund them. Well, hopefully.
However, the money markets are funny things - there is a great lack of transparency and it is possible to hide almost anything in the enormous volume of transactions that take place daily. If the degree of transparency that is required to starve terrorists of funding was achieved, that same transparency would mean capitalism itself would have to take on new forms.
It would need to be reinvented for clarity, for honesty, transactions taking place more openly, rather than covertly. Certain offshore havens might have to go, or at least, open their books to governmental scrutiny of some sort. Who is to scrutinise? And who is to scrutinise the scrutinisers, to make sure corruption doesnt creep in?? It's all pretty unlikely, frankly.
I'm answering this in parts because you are almost as "long winded" as I am...lol
It makes America safe by reducing terrorist training grounds and safe havens, and it deters others from offering similar accommodations. I have a rather "long winded sermon" on this a page or two back
(I think it's in this thread).
The money, for all the reasons you mention, isn't as important as the safe harbors because it can't really be controlled. We should continue to take all we can find, but realize we will never get it all. But it's like taking money from a drug dealer, it hurts a little, but there's alot more where that came from.