On May 11, 2005, at 10:15 AM, Ronn!Blankenship wrote:
I just wonder what can be done to solve the plight of those millions of human beings, and so far haven't heard much in the way of suggestions on how to save them, or an argument that the status quo is somehow the best of all possible scenarios and anything anyone does will only lead to more death and suffering.
Apropos to Iraq, I've asked this question a few times and so far no one's answered it.
So I'll ask it again.
Assuming that:
1. The US is interested in spreading the idea/blessing/gift/[whatever] of democracy to the other nations of the world; and
2. The US's security is better served by reducing, rather than increasing, places where terrorists can train; and
3. In 2001 and 2002, the REAL purpose of the US was to find and prosecute OBL and his cabal of lunatics; and
4. A good US presence in the middle east would be a way to see goals 2 and 3 successfully met,
...why was #1 not enacted in a nation that we know had terrorist camps, ties to OBL, and an oppressed people yearning for freedom?
In early 2002, Afghanistan was entirely beaten. The oppressive Taliban had finally been sent packing into the hills, OBL's main training site had been completely taken over by US troops, the world -- with a few exceptions -- was completely behind us, and it looked like it would only be a matter of months before OBL was chased out of his own little spider hole somewhere.
So why, given the above, was Afghanistan not democratized and stabilized entirely? With a good solid pro-US government there, couldn't pressure have been mounted on other nations to force terrorists away? Wouldn't it have been much more useful to have a committed and strengthening ally on a border with Pakistan? (That is, two such -- India, and then Afghanistan.)
What would have been imprudent or undesirable about effecting total democratic transformation in Afghanistan first, using it as a case study to prove that we could do it? Why leave Afghanistan an unresolved mess -- which it still is -- to go and make another unresolved mess?
What the hell were Rummy and the rest thinking? I'd really like to know. And I'd really like to know why anyone would suggest that the aforementioned course would have been *worse* than the one we're on now.
-- Warren Ockrassa, Publisher/Editor, nightwares Books http://books.nightwares.com/ Current work in progress "The Seven-Year Mirror" http://www.nightwares.com/books/ockrassa/Flat_Out.pdf
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