SI
SI
discoversearch

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor.  We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community.  If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.
Politics : Formerly About Applied Materials
AMAT 268.72+1.3%3:59 PM EST
 Public ReplyPrvt ReplyMark as Last ReadFilePrevious 10Next 10PreviousNext  
To: Sun Tzu who wrote (67716)2/10/2003 3:24:38 PM
From: runes  Read Replies (4) of 70976
 
No Sun Tzu - The Taliban were founded...

...by Mullah Omar in '94 as a response to a particularly brutal robbery/rape/murder by local bandits. It then spread from a village police action into a full blown movement. Now you have a valid point that they were drawing from the same fan base that we had previously armed but so were the bandits and the warlords.
...You are stretching the connections beyond credibility to prove that the US mucks up everything they touch. (Or should we have anticipated that a hardline Islamic government would form which would then hook up with another Islamic terrorist organization to come back and bite us in the ass?)

Beyond that you pretty much confirm my contention that any action - be it diplomatic or armed or covert or even inaction - ends up creating good and bad consequences. Which makes it easy to waggle ones finger about all the bad consequences of action.
...But how do you assess the consequences of the associated inaction? What if Afghanistan had remained under the USSR? Would the USSR have fallen or would the cold war have continued to threaten the world with nuclear winter?
....(Another example of the consequences of total inaction is the Hutu-Tutsi mutual genocide in Rwanda - would action have been better?)

The horrible truth is that there is no way to ever judge<<edit predetermine>> all the consequences of interference. Nor the consequences of non-interference. So you are left to make the best (hopefully ethical) judgement that you can, based on the current circumstances, and hope that the ramifications don't do you in (but they frequently do).
...The idea that you can anticipate the longer term consequences is folly.

And so my points are - 1) Don't try to draw a broad generalization out of the chaotic mess that is our world - the noise overwhelms any meaningful signal. 2) Don't try to take such a generalization and use it to analyze a specific situation i.e. Bush v Iraq. 3) (IMO) Your arguments against Iraq invasion will carry a lot more weight if it is not part of a generic US bashing.

In other words - lets stick to the specific costs and consequences of the current situation and judge it on it's own merits.
Report TOU ViolationShare This Post
 Public ReplyPrvt ReplyMark as Last ReadFilePrevious 10Next 10PreviousNext  

HomeMailHotSubjectMarksPeopleMarksKeepersSettings
Terms Of UseContact UsCopyright/IP PolicyPrivacy PolicyAbout UsFAQAdvertise on SI
© 2025 Knight Sac Media.  Data provided by Twelve Data, Alpha Vantage, and CityFALCON News