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  • From my reading, the writer is fairly right-wing, what with the underlying assumption that American foreign interventions are generally a good thing, but they need to be done right. I'd strongly disagree with that, but ...

    The fact that someone who is relatively right is still saying that the Bush administration is completely fscking things up ought to a big alarm to anyone, no matter their political leanings.
    • Yes, I would have to agree - our actions will have international ramifications for decades to come.

      Last two paragraphs of the 1st section:


                      In one respect, I believe that the Bush administration is right: this war will look better when it is over. The military campaign will probably be less difficult than many of Washington’s opponents think. Most important, it will reveal the nature of Saddam’s barbarous regime. Prisoners and political d

      • [Iraq, like Afghanistan, will be a better place after this is all done with]

        What the hell are you talking about? The US has completely abandoned Afghanistan, and things there are about as bad as they were under the Taliban! Have you actually ready anything about Afghanistan recently? I doubt it, since the mainstream US media hasn't really covered it for quite a while. So did you just make your assertion up? You must have, because it doesn't really coincide with reality.

        The RAWA (Revolutionary Women [fancymarketing.net]
        • The US has NOT "completely abandoned Afghanistan" (what do you call the presence of troops (helping to rebuild the country and train the fledgling Afghan army), including Special Forces to continue to protect Karzai? Or what do you call the millions (billions?) of dollars of aid that the US has already provided Afghanistan?) and your statement or assertion (and dare I say ignorance or bias) almost prompts me to ignore the rest of this rant... almost.

          I took a look at the Web site you linked to and there ar
          • I didn't say Afghanistan was worse, I simply disagreed with your assertion that it will be a better place. Right now, over a year after the US "intervention", it is not meaningfully better. The articles I linked to suggest to me that it's unlikely to be better any time soon. Yes, there are historical reasons for this beyond the recent US bombing. One historical reason I'd point out is US funding of the Taliban (including Osama bin Laden) back when they were the mujahadin (sp?).

            We will see if the countr
              • One historical reason I'd point out is US funding of the Taliban (including Osama bin Laden) back when they were the mujahadin (sp?).

              You need to get your players straight. First, Osama Bin Laden was never a member of the Taliban. The Taliban, which only really coalesced in 1994, was made up of Talibes, mostly Pashtun religious zealots who overran Afghanistan with Pakistani support.

              Now, many of the Taliban had been mujahedeen, but it's hard to see where we ever funding the Taliban, except perhaps tha

              • You need to get your players straight. First, Osama Bin Laden was never a member of the Taliban. The Taliban, which only really coalesced in 1994, was made up of Talibes, mostly Pashtun religious zealots who overran Afghanistan with Pakistani support.

                Now, many of the Taliban had been mujahedeen, but it's hard to see where we ever funding the Taliban, except perhaps that foreign aid we sent them for destroying the Poppy crop one year.

                Fair enough, I wasn't trying to imply that the US had directly funded th
                  • Was there no legitimate democratic opposition to the Soviet occupation?

                  AFAIK, there was no opposition except for the Mujahideen. They were a very mixed bag, but there are legitimate Democratic elements, like Karzai (father was a Mujahideen leader) and Dr. Muhammed (new foreign minister, former Mujahideen).

                  • Or did those people just not look likely to provide the economic access the US would want?

                  Sheesh, where do you get your world view? The Worker's World Daily? Our support of the Afghani opposition had nothing to do with economic access.

                  It was Cold War politics, plain and simple. The US was concerned that with a destablized Iran that the Soviets could push their hegemony over the critical MidEast, perhaps taking Saudi Arabia. In the late 70's Iraq was cozier to the Soviets than they were to us, so it looked pretty frightening. Recall that Syria was a direct Soviet client state at the time. Syria and Iraq both had the Islamic Socialist model of government (the Bathist party is common to both).

                  The US only supplied very limited support anyway. Some weapons, some intelligence, not very costly. The Mujihadeen were highly motivated civil warriors that did the rest. The Pakistanis probably provided a lot of support to the Mujihadeen. In those days, Pakistan was closer to the west and India was closer to the Soviets. Pakistan couldn't stand the thought of being surrounded by enemies.

                  The civil war didn't immediately get us the Taliban. There was a fledgling democracy after the Soviets were ousted, but the in-fighting among the various ethnic groups led to chaos. Pakistan bolstered the Taliban as a stable solution, which they were. There were other problems, however.

                  In retrospect, things might have been done differently, sure. The Soviet humiliation in Afghanistan went a long way to taking down the Soviet Union. The leaders of the USSR lost all confidence in the ability of their military to be able to do anything right. They couldn't even keep down a bunch of ragtag guerrillas from a third world nation on their border.

                  It was perhaps naive to believe that a world without a Soviet Union would be safer...

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