Re: RE: Canadian Troops Targe
Maybe I should have phrased it, the initial goal should have been simply to have dealt a blow against those who were more directly involved in 911. The Taliban are made up of all sorts of Afghanistan people. Many probably would have only cared about what went on internally in their society than anything else. Much of the country was tribal.
Creating an occupation of Afghanistan isn’t going to prevent another 911. People who conduct those types of terrorism don’t signify any particular type of country, but rather are an organization that can have it’s members pretty much anywhere.
Are we going to live in perpetual fear because of 911? I think the cold war presented a real great threat in itself with the possibility of nuclear warfare when both super powers were at the point of brinkmanship. We have only managed to survive to this day from a deescalation of the tensions rather than an escalation. If current policies only breed more terrorism, than we owe it to our survival that we pay more attention to the root causes. Rather than mostly supporting military emphasis overseas, we need to be paying more attention to domestic security. People change with the right motivation. Our tactics are not providing the right motivation.
The occupation of Afghanistan will probably do more to promote the cause of those organizations that wish to do us harm than it will eliminate the problem. As far as abandoning the Afghans, we should never have put ourselves in a position of being backed up against a wall where no outcome will be good in the end. Neither should the USA have abandoned utilizing the bulk of their resources for Afghanistan and started fraudulent wars.
That kind of changed the whole dynamics of what we can do there and how we are perceived. If the dynamics have changed, not by our fault, then neither are we really at fault if we no longer see us having to burden ourselves with unrealistic military obligations.
I think if there is any type of intervention that the Afghans would be more willing to allow, it would have to come from a collective force of Arab countries who they can identify with both culturally and religiously. However I doubt even other Arab countries want to really touch this problem.
Neither would the USA be willing to accept that peace in Afghanistan came by way of the establishment of a theocracy which might have the best chance at creating such stability (unfortunately — but that is again reality).
I don’t like any of these options. I don’t like the whole thing.
The UN won’t commit to it. Why would member countries want to share in this mess? NATO countries don’t even want to contribute aside from the few of us that already have. We are under staffed for an occupation. We don’t have the numbers on the ground to make a true difference.
tracy said:
I find the notion that Afghanis CAN"T change to be bizarre. They were once a pretty modern country. Women were doctors and lawyers. It wasn't always the country it became after its war with the soviets.
As far as Afghanistan and the Taliban. That which became the Taliban were once supplied and trained by the USA in fighting those Solviets. Let’s not forget that part.
It’s also just as arrogant to think we are the ones who can change them. Again, I believe in change. I believe in change for Afghanistan when the society as a whole is ready to commit to such a change.
