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Politics : America Under Siege: The End of Innocence -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Mark L. who wrote (910)	9/12/2001 10:51:12 PM
From: George Papadopoulos	Respond to of 27666

>I am hardly an expert on Afghanistan, but it did not appear to me that the attack around Kabul that I saw on CNN was the work of Boy Scouts, as you suggested. Mark, I did not suggest that. I just said that the NA without the strong leadership of Massoud is not a viable threat to the Taliban. Massoud was a very strong leader that kept a wide variety of groups together and made them fight like hell. There is tons of Soviets having nightmares about them. As far as the explosions in Kabul, we don't know yet who is behind. We denied being involved but some wacko Taliban probably got a hold of a Budweiser imported by the embargo traffickers and got drunk since it was his first beer...and since he was the local ammunition guard and could not read the warnings, he also got out a Marlboro and lit one up and KABOOM. In other words, who knows what was that, I doubt it was NA troops, they are too far and these guys are scattering right now without Massoud. >Even if you're right, and the Northern Alliance is not capable of helping us unseat the Taliban, I still think an ultimatum would be a wise decision. And, no, I wasn't suggesting a ground war. But I think a simple statement would be effective: something like "If the Taliban government does not comply with our request, it would be foolish for any Afghani to remain in a city with a population over 10,000 or to be anywhere near a military installation." NA can not help us unseat the Taliban right now, but with some strong financial backing and the emergence of the new leader they can sure help be a thorn on the Taliban side. But I am afraid the Talibans are about to finish them off before we get to them. Sad but true. As far as the ultimatum, I proposed that hundreds of posts ago. I think it is a good move. It shows we are not going to take this sh*t anymore and it gives the Taliban a way to save face (you always must do that in diplomacy). Let's see what they do. I am sure a bunch of them are not quite ready to make the date with the virgins yet... >This would be de-stabilizing for as long as we were willing to enforce it. This is intended to be a novel form of a blockade; Afganistan has been destabilized for years now. Actually the only time they experience some form of stability is with the Taliban (sad but true). So more destabilization is irrelevant to them, they 'll just come out of the hills after the bombing, bury their dead and have the survivors sign up with them (they now despise them, especially the women) >I think it would ultimately prove effective. And it would certainly be a hell of a deterrent to other regimes which harbor terrorists.Yes, the Afghanis could take to the hills, but how long would a whole country want to do that? Prove effective to stop terrorism? Maybe it will reduce it for a while but it will, IMHO, increase terrorism in the long term. I hope I am wrong on this, I guess we'll find out. >Incidentally I agree with you about a long-term commitment to fighting terrorism. We're not even sure that Bin Laden was responsible for the World Trade Center. But we do know that he was responsible for Kenya, and that the Taliban regime ignored our extradition requests for years. By declaring a war on terrorism, we would be holding the Taliban regime responsible for their years of complicity. And we'd be giving them an opportunity to back up their new words with actions (by turning over Bin Laden). I bear no ill will toward Afghanis or even toward the Taliban as long as they realize that there is a new world reality and that the timetable for complying with our previous extradition requests is now down to a few days. I always liked the ultimatum idea and I totally agree with your paragraph above. The key to this whole problem is the JUST settlement between Israel and the Palestinians, we solve that and we get a head start in attacking this cancer.