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To: Constant Reader who wrote (2424)	9/16/2001 6:33:14 PM
From: Win Smith	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 51712

People are seeing something in Afghanistan that is quite at odds with the country as I understand it. You might consider some of the information in cia.gov . Land use: arable land: 12% permanent crops: 0% permanent pastures: 46% forests and woodland: 3% other: 39% (1993 est.) Infant mortality rate: 149.28 deaths/1,000 live births (2000 est.) Life expectancy at birth: total population: 45.88 years male: 46.62 years female: 45.1 years (2000 est.) (I think current life expectancy is lower). Government type: no functioning central government, administered by factions Telephones - main lines in use: 31,200 (1983); note - there were 21,000 main lines in use in Kabul in 1998 Railways: total: 24.6 km Military branches: NA; note - the military does not exist on a national basis; some elements of the former Army, Air and Air Defense Forces, National Guard, Border Guard Forces, National Police Force (Sarandoi), and tribal militias still exist but are factionalized among the various groups . By all indications, Afghanstan is not much different from various places in Africa where the government has more or less disappeared. Whatever their sympathies, I'd guess the Taliban might have trouble delivering bin Laden, because they don't really control the country. They control Kabul, which probably means they have nominal control over the majority of the starving wretches that constitute Afghanistan's population at this point. I hope that they do not attempt to invade and occupy Afghanistan - it would be a waste of human life and valuable time. What would you propose as an alternative? Bomb the crap out of a country that doesn't really have a functional central government, to make us feel good? A lot of human life has been wasted in Afghanistan in the last 20 years, most of it Afghan, much of it at the behest of Russia and the US. That's different, though, right?