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Pastimes : My House -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Poet who wrote (4019)	12/18/2002 9:20:57 AM
From: thames_sider	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 7689

Mmm, having removed the Taliban entirely it's hard - and Hekhmetar's (sp?) assassination made things harder. Still, I'm more of the opinion that we (the West - not just US) should have explicitly stayed in Afghanistan, and not just Kabul itself but the key towns, and overseen a proper reconstruction effort. Post-WWII style, not an 'in-and-out' despoilage. If you change a regime you can't just wash your hands of the consequences. Of course, if the UN had voted us/US out, that's different... but then, that's explicitly their responsibility. Otherwise, at least a 5-year nation-building, prove that it's possible to create as well as destroy, build an infrastructure, schools, roads, etc... it would probably cost less than a war with Iraq would waste, create jobs as well as useful stuff, and the non-loony ME would find it impossible to speak against. That'll empty the madrassahs, which are only full and pumping their creed of hatred because there's no other place to get schooling... Win vast kudos, Nobel Peace Prizes, and show how to build a democracy. And don't bother with a full election until the locals have had 5-10 years of decent rule to show them how it can work in practice: maybe begin with local jirga-based councils, then provincial councils, and then a Premier-level election... Simple, eh? Well, no, but it beats bombing another country into crap while the first one regresses under warlords to a base for terrorists and drug growers...