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

To: Nadine Carroll who wrote (74413)	2/15/2003 11:31:36 PM
From: TigerPaw	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 281500

and I read somewhere (can't find it now) that we have pledged about $800 million towards rebuilding Afghanistan this year, An empty pledge if it were really made. The current budget calls for nothing for Afghanistan. Time to send Sally Struthers over. news.bbc.co.uk

To: Nadine Carroll who wrote (74413)	2/16/2003 12:20:33 AM
From: Jacob Snyder	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

<We still have troops in Afghanistan> Yes, we do, even if the media has forgotten. If we are spending money and attention on Afghani "nation-building", the results so far have been very meagre. Afghanistan, today, looks a lot like it did pre-Taliban, with more rubble. A lot like Germany in the 100-Years War: The ground is held by a shifting patch-work of warlords, foreign armies, brigands, armed religious fanatics. There is no rule of law anywhere. There is something that calls itself the "Government of Afghanistan", but its writ ends at Kabul's suburbs, and only goes that far because it is propped up by foreign soldiers. There is no democracy. The civil institutions which must precede democracy have never existed, and aren't being built: universal education for literacy, a functioning court system, separation of church and state, national institutions, etc. Even if we don't care what happens to the people of Afghanistan, the chaos and near-universal misery in Afghanistan today are ideal breeding grounds for Islamicism. Our Special Forces will be chasing terrorists up and down Afghan mountains forever, until that changes.