"David Nebenzahl" wrote in message
.com...
On 12/11/2010 5:08 PM Robert Green spake thus:

We should let the Taliban back in, let them build their government up
and
THEN topple it.

Why should we even plan to do that? What gives us the right to dictate
the type and composition of governance of the Afghan people? Where do we
get off playing cosmic overlord there?

I was suggesting it as an alternative to what we're doing now: spending
billions to build up a government that the Taliban will destroy as soon as
we leave, if not sooner. In reality, I don't believe we had the right to
invade either country. We might have had the right to go into Iraq to look
for nukes loosely based on the precepts of our own legal system, which
allows for such searches if the potential for harm is great enough. Saddam
opened the door to that with his threats and his uncooperative behavior.
But once we established there were no nukes, that should have been the end
of it. A search warrant in the US legal system gives the right to search,
but not the right to burn down the house being searched if nothing named in
the warrant is found.

I agree with everything you said UP to that point. Let the Taliban back
in. Leave the country. Then let an international group try to deal with
the problems we exacerbated by invading the place.

I agree. Let the blue beanies do it. Policing by an international force
makes sense for a number of reasons. Most importantly it makes us less of a
target for madmen bent on revenge. That's the common theme of many of the
recent bomb plots - revenge for the invasions. Anyone who doesn't believe
that revenge is a powerful motivator only has to look to our reaction to
9/11. We love our revenge as much as any Islamic terrorist. It's just
human nature. Look at Harry's posts. We saved England's butts in WWII but
good deeds don't seem to having much staying power. Bad deeds, however, do.
Look at the animosity that so many Southerners still have for the North
because of a war almost 150 years ago. We engage in magical thinking when
we believe the countries where we're killing by the dumptruck load will
remember us as saviors rather than invaders. Friends come and go, but
enemies accumulate.

Really, the Taliban have about zero interest in us or what we do,
provided we're thousands of miles away from their home. Remember, they
did not attack us on Sept. 11; rather, it was their guests. They may
have been sympathetic to the attack, sure, but they also have a very
strong impulse towards self-preservation.

We are pulling the same BS we did in Vietnam with body counts. The military
has been assuring us for ten years that a win is "just around the corner."
Obviously not. Much of the aid money we pour into that sinkhole actually
ends up in the Taliban's hands. There can't be anything more stupid than
handing money over to your enemies. We're backing a thug as crooked as Diem
and the Shah of Iran. Look how well those actions turned out for us.

Those who spout and pontificate about the Taliban really owe it to
themselves (and to the rest of us) to educate themselves on the subject
first. I'd recommend the book /Taliban: Militant Islam, Oil &
Fundamentalism in Central Asia/ as a very good starting point.

Right now, they're doing the same to us, blowing up whatever WE try
to build.

Yes, which is completely to be expected when WE are there trying to
wreck everything they have--homes and lives.

That's a point I've relentlessly tried to make. We are never able to put
ourselves in the shoes of the countries we've invaded. What would we do if
China, the USSR and some others invaded us? Would we roll over and
cooperate the way we expect the Iraqis and Afghanis to do? Of course not.
We would fight back. Hard and relentlessly.

I don't care much for the Taliban myself; they're essentially
anti-democratic, misogynistic and their mindset is hopelessly
12th-century or so.

If that's the sort of government they want, they should be free to choose
it. Ramming democracy down someone's throat at the end of a gun barrel
seems somewhat antithetical to the concept of freedom. But as the reaction
of Israel to the election of Hamas showed, it's not about democracy and the
freedom to choose the government the people want. It has to be the
government *we* want.

But that still gives me *zero* right to wade into their homeland and
smash everything up. Unless they attack us, which they have not (and
have shown almost no interest in doing).

Nor can they. We've spent a lot of blood and treasure fighting enemies with
almost no ability to project military power much farther than their own
backyard, AND WE'RE LOSING!!! Meanwhile, North Korea has the ability and
apparently the willingness to use nukes and we're pussyfooting around it.
Perhaps that's because NK has some very credible military forces and an ally
in China that won't allow us to run amok the way we've done in AfRaqPak. I
don't believe either invasion would have occurred if Russia was still a
superpower. They were an important "check and balance."

--
Bobby G.