This place sure goes in "spurts"

[David Sanders]

2009/7/21 Robert Holtzman <holtzm at cox.net>:
> On Tue, 21 Jul 2009, David Sanders wrote:
>
>> 2009/7/21 Odd <iodine at runbox.no>:
>>>
>>> Taliban was in control of Afghanistan at that time,
>>> and they refused to hand over bin laden. So they
>>> had it coming.
>>
>> Oh yes of course. A whole country down the toilet because of damaged
>> pride. Way to go America, example of modern democracy and humility to
>> us all.
>> Now I'll let you get back to annihilating the arab world.
>
> Out of curiosity, what response would *you* advocate?
>

Well certainly one that fell within international law (such as it is)
for starters.

It was certainly not a proportionate response to invade a sovereign
state when only a small section (if any) of that state were involved
in an act against the USA. It was, as has been made clear even by the
perpetrators, not an act of war by Afghanistan, but by a small group
of fundamentalists.
Destabilising the region certainly wasn't going to create less
extremists, and indeed if the primary goal was the capture of OBL,
then perhaps a full-scale war wouldn't have been the first thing that
came into my mind.

So, the real option would have been to apply international pressure
towards forcing the Afghan taliban to cough up the whereabouts of OBL
and his supposed Al Qaida "army", if indeed they knew, and to rely on
the international sense of outrage felt to bring together a
multi-lateral UN force to bring structure to the feudal taliban armies
and improve conditions in Afghanistan.

Improved conditions and education will stop extremism, not blowing
people up with helicopter gunships.

I get the feeling from speaking to my American friends that this is
also a view shared by many people in the US, but as usual the
politicians will appeal to the lowest common denominator emotions when
attempting to win public support. It's funny how many people will
think outright war is a good idea when the government tells them so.
So many people seem to have forgotten Vietnam, and now there are two
Vietnams in progress even as we speak.

Cheers