[Barry the Sprout]

Larry, I agree with you about womens education. You can generally tell how progressive a regime is by its treatment of women. The sad fact about Afghanistan is that the only time the women there have been treated as anything like equals to men was in the Soviet occupied sectors 15-20 years ago. If it becomes widespread in Afghanistan under the NA or the UN then I will personally go and bow before George Bush's feet and kiss his shoes. But we'll just have to see.

Ronn, I don't think there really is a +ve side for the people of Afghanistan anymore. The sad fact about all of this is that the Taliban do have popular support. Any kind of coalition if it is to be democratic must include both them and the Northern Alliance. Something that will be very conducive to good government I am sure... If we include neither then it is hardly going to endear the Afghan people to us. This is what worries me most to be honest, we will put in place a government that has no popular support and thus have to prop it up constantly. So we become the demon of these people's lives even more. To them we are imposing a government and ensuring its unpopular survival. And the options other than that are that we let the Taliban back in (unpopular for the West) or the Northern Alliance (unpopular for the Afghan people).

Every person that has died has a family. Most of them were p***ed off with us anyway. The death of so many people has created a generation of martyrs and if we prop up a government then all we will do is create a generation of freedom fighters in their image. Even if all you care about is westerners (not aimed at you Ronn because I know you don't, it is just illustrating the point) then the bombing and occupation is not going to help in the slightest. They will attack back, we will attack back, etc. And each time it will get harder to stop. We could have avoided that but we chose not too.

So now we have acheived what? Bin Laden can't use Afghanistan anymore. What are going to do - bomb every country in the world so that he can't use that either? The point about Al-Queda is that it has cells in lots of different countries. They could probably use America or Britain as a base of operations if they wanted to. This action has played into his hands as he has lost very little and gained the hearts and minds of a generation at least. It may seem depressing and negative, but only because it is true.