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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Hawkmoon who wrote (12153)	11/30/2001 4:57:08 PM
From: Gottfried	Respond to of 281500

Hawk, excellent post! Gottfried [end]

To: Hawkmoon who wrote (12153)	11/30/2001 5:27:02 PM
From: Maurice Winn	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 281500

Powell and Rice shouldn't get their noses in a knot over Russia in Afghanistan. That's a good outcome. Russia has the biggest stake in that area. They and others to the north have big oil supplies which they want to sell to the USA via a pipeline to the south. The USA will want to buy that oil. That means keeping kleptomaniac megalomaniacs like Dostum on a short leash. He looks like and acts like a young version of Saddam Hussein. It will be ironic if in a few years a semi-moral Islamic movement is replaced by a Stalin/Hitler/Hussein style totalitarian state right there in the cross roads of history and straddling an important oil supply line. The Taleban at least tried to build a moral foundation, albeit one that I would have little sympathy with, being based on total control and murder. They and Jerry Falwell would get along well [certainly they would have more in common with each other than they would with me], each blaming the WTC attack on the evil in the USA. The Warlord style state is simple chimpland male dominance hierarchy writ large with development to match. The USA won't want to have 30 million people stuck in that medieval backwater in that area. Here is an opportunity to Colinize the place and form a Condominium with Russia, Pakistan, China, Turkey and so on to set up civilization over their fences. The people of Afghanistan would like it. Take a headcount of those who want General Dostum as Head Chimp, ruling at the point of a gun and those who want a UN protectorate with a constitution and democratic government. While I don't know the intricacies of Aghanistan, it seems there is a case for northern and southern self-governing regions. But I agree, that in the meantime, doing what is the primary aim, [which is the destruction of the Taleban people, the Jihadists and Osama's crowd], should be achieved. Let's not end up with another Iraq, which is where we seem to be heading for by leaving it to the locals to sort out on the basis of biggest and toughest and meanest takes over, just as Saddam did. I like the idea of Russia being present. They have got insurrection in Chechnya and one of the silver linings of the WTC attack was that the support for Chechen 'freedom fighters' by the USA seems to have waned. Another is that the IRA has lost some American support for their 'freedom fight'. Like Pavlov's dog, a lot of people salivate when they see Russia. Let's hope Powell and Rice can leave the cold war in the annals of history and get going with UN-based Colinisation and Condominiums. From the sidelines, Mqurice PS: The idea that primitive Afghans are unsuitable for democracy is racist nonsense. Democracy is a very recent way of life for nearly all countries but everywhere it has been much better than anything which has gone before. Japan, Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, USA, South America etc are all new to democratic ideas but all have done well from them. Japan, like Afghanistan, was militarily defeated, occupied and a new consitution enforced and occupation forces are still there. Japan and the USA have done well from that occupation and enforcement of democracy on a country with no tradition of that. All children born are ready to adopt the most recent trends available and part of the rites of passage in all cultures is challenge of parental ways and adoption of what the youngsters want. In a single generation, a primitive world can become modern and in fact the most modern because they carry no baggage. They have almost nothing in Afghanistan. When did negroes and women in the USA get the vote and total freedom? If I remember rightly it wasn't all that long ago, so democracy doesn't need to be perfect to be more effective than Dostum's way of life. Even the slave-driving religious misognyist Americans have achieved it. The Taleban were religious misogynists too [though not slave-drivers] so maybe they would do even better than Americans at democracy if they had some re-education.