quote:
Originally posted by Barry the Sprout:
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.
There are positives and you can see them looking in the faces of those freed from Taliban rule. You can see the positives in the uprisings against the Taliban by local tribes. I can see the negatives, and I don't expect you to agree with me but to have true perspective you have to see both sides.
The Taliban
had popular support, but lost it before this coalition effort began. They lost it because they enforced their radical interpretations of Islam on the citizens of Afghanistan. They ruled with popularity to begin with, but their rule quickly turned to one of force and intimidation. We aren't going to prop up a government. The UN wants to allow Afghanistan to be ruled by a cross section of Afgans. This should be based on a rule by Afghan people not by radical political groups.
The only way to have avoided this conflict is for September 11th not to have happened or for US not to have responded. There is no peaceful solution to terrorism. They do not want to negotiation, they want America removed from the face of the planet according to their announcement yesterday. They tried to say Osama didn't do it, he couldn't have because he was under their supervision, but now the truth comes out that they were with him all the time. Everything they did after September 11th, was a delaying tactic.
Osama's organization does have lots of cells and those have to be weeded out, but the training grounds, recruiting stations, command and control facilities, and the governmental protection provided by the Taliban can not be allowed to exist.
[ 11-17-2001: Message edited by: Ronn_Bman ]