Hi Razorbak,
I read your latest post with great interest. You make an number of very valid points and your description of your experiences in Pakistan in particular is a very insightful first hand account. Thank you for sharing that with us.
As to my passport, I'd say you have me beat hands down as far as globetrotting is concerned. I've traveled in the three countries of North America and briefly to Europe. So, you correctly judged that I haven't had much 3rd world experience. Perhaps the closest I ever came to that was an inadvertent turn (ala Sherman McCoy in "Bonfire of the Vanities") when I ended up in a completely unfamiliar (to me) neighborhood on the near West Side of Chicago. My fear was palpable as watched with increasing trepidation the hatred in the eyes of the men on those street corners as I impatiently waited for my stoplight to turn. As close to panicking as I've ever gotten, ready to race away.
As far as taking direct action against the state of Afghanistan, Sudan or any of the other proposed targets for our anger and lashing out, all I can say is that it will be a feel good moment for the country when the TV news shows us blowing something up. No doubt about it. It worked swell during the Gulf War. The only problem that we are left with, is that our wanton destruction of Kabul, Khartoum or any other asset we'd like to blow up, is that it will only serve to be the greatest recruitment tool the enemy could ever have. Unless we want the U.S. to be on a permanent war footing (and I, for one, do not), the course of action that the U.S. must engage in is a measured and considered response and a willingness to take the necessary security measures that we must in order to protect our vital interests on our home turf.
Politically and diplomatically, I think we are on the moral high ground right now. Heck, even Moammar Khaddafi has condemned the terrorists. We can take advantage of the good will of the world, and in particular the nation states of the Middle East by acting judiciously to try to eradicate these fundamentalist cells as we can. But to engage in a wholesale carpet bombing approach to salve our anger will only serve to further the agendas of our enemies. It will only be further proof that we are indeed the "Great Satan". Unless we take the high ground, remaining resolute and determined to punish the real perpetrators and not a crowd of innocents, and unless we take intelligent steps toward greater transport security without the utter crippling of the transportation system as we are witnessing now, I frankly do not see how we can get past this episode without a drastic and unfortunate transformation in the vaunted American way of life that all of us here have come to see as the best of all possible worlds.
My reading of the "Tournament of Shadows" continues. I can hardly overemphasize how every Western attempt to intervene in the internal affairs of Afghanistan since the early 1800's has been utterly rebuffed at considerable cost to the foreign interventionists. It is this lesson that I addressed in my disparaging comments about "Bully Boy Bluster". I'm opposed to this approach for only one reason. History proves, it doesn't work.
Cordially, Ray |
