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Politics : Formerly About Applied Materials
AMAT 268.72+1.3%Dec 3 3:59 PM EST
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To: Sun Tzu who wrote (67708)2/10/2003 12:30:21 PM
From: runes  Read Replies (1) of 70976
 
For the record - the Taliban were founded in 1994 - well after Reagan was out of office. I am surprised that you would make such a mistake. But then it's easy to start with the assumption that the US backed the bad people and extrapolate from there.
...In truth - our mistake in Afghanistan was one of non-interference. We bailed right after the Russians leaving them armed to the teeth. The resulting power vacuum produced the Taliban - the only group that was cohesive enough to wield the power necessary to reunite the country.

As for the Contras - they were more of a joke than a real threat. Contrast that to the Sandanistas who were a populist movement that fizzled after 10 years. To their discredit was the oft times brutal repression of the semi autonomous indiginous tribes.

And then there is the Shah of Iran - a strong man put in power to keep the USSR at bay in the Middle East - which he did with a brutal secular approach that offended the population. And then, to our credit, we moved him out rather than face a possible bloodbath. For which we are still hated.

And then there is Marcos - another strongman who got too drunk on power. Again we moved him out in order to avoid a bloodbath. And the Phillipines have undergone an orderly transition. Except that each progressive change has brought more and more corruption and unrest to the country.

So there you have it - we solve one problem and our solution creates a new problem. We solve that problem and we still end up hated. We keep our hands out of the pie and we get a new problem. We use gentle persuation with minimal disruption and we still end up leaving while watching a stabile government decay.

The bottom line is that there are no black and white situations and no black and white solutions. And even good solutions can go bad. So have a care about how you condemn. It's a very messy world out there and while the US track record is poor, I don't see anybody else doing much better.

Do you?
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