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The folks in charge there now [the Karzai government] are not perfect by a long shot but they are a damn site better than the folks in there before.
The Karzai government is irrelevant. They have control of Kabul, and that is about it. The rest of the country is under the control of the warlords -- the people who were "in charge" before the Taliban, and the reason that the Afghanis accepted Taliban rule. The Taliban were theocratic dictators, but they at least kept the peace. The warlords are dictators
and they kill people in their squabbles with other warlords.
Under the Taliban, people were murdered, often for sectarian religious reasons. Women had little to no rights. Under the current situation, people are murdered, often for sectarian reasons. Women have little to no rights. And people are being killed in the endemic warfare between rival warlords, and the warfare is interfering with the building of any kind of infrastructure.
This is the definition of "things are worse." The same problems as before still exist, and there are additional problems that were not here before. When more problems are added to the previous problems and the previous problems have not been alleviated, people usually say that things are worse off.
Okay, so things in Kabul itself may be a little better in the sense that women are only under threat by individual terrorists rather than organized social structures. I recognize that there is a possible moral calculus that will say that it is worth the rest of the country going up in flames as long as a small piece of territory, Kabul, has some relative freedom. This is not a moral calculus to which I subscribe. As much as I am glad that people in Kabul may have this temporary respite, it is not worth the death and destruction that is occurring in the rest of the country.
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At some point the fighting has to stop and peace has to be restored.
Yes, like in Vietnam. A peace was arrange between the North Vietnamese and the US. Part of the deal was the independence of South Vietnam would be respected. Two years later, the North Vietnamese took Saigon. I wonder if the US is going to allow the Karzai regime (or its successor) to fall, or whether it will guarantee the existence of a pro-West Kabul even while the rest of the country falls into Taliban/warlord rule.
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So you're saying we're better off not fighting back and letting the murderers do their thing unopposed? You first.
I guess I don't know what is so hard to understand here. It is a part of growing up that one realizes that sometimes there is just nothing someone can do about a problem. Or that the only things that can be done are seemingly small, minor steps that might (or might not) lead to a better situation in the far future.
I like action movies as much as anyone else, but at some point one must realize that rushing in with guns blazing and taking out the bad guys just doesn't work in real life. It's tough. It's infuriating. But sometimes there is nothing that one can do without making the situation worse.
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Even if all that is being accomplished is that we are destroying ourselves by fighting those who would destroy us, I'd still opt to fight.
Except that there isn't anyone who "would" destroy us, and there hasn't been a significant threat to the US since the US signed that treaty with Great Britain setting the boundary with Canada. The only "threats" since then were an attempt by the Southern states to secede, and an attempt by the Japanese to grab the American colonies in Asia and the Pacific.
There are people who would make it very, very painful for the US to continue interfering in what they believe to be their territory. But that is a far cry from being a threat to the US itself.
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...but pundits have construed every move of this administration as a criminal money grab.
Because that is what this has been. I honestly can't see what is so hard to believe about it. It has been part of US policy since WWII to have the major control of the Mideast oil fields. What is more, before the Iraq war, Hussein was signing contracts with Russian and French companies to drill the oil fields when the sanctions were finally lifted. And the coalition against Iraq was weakening -- even the Kuwaitis were saying that the sanctions regime was too tough. It was clear that the Administration intended to remove Hussein, install their own dictator (probably legimized by some sort of "elections") who would then cancel the contracts with the French and Russians, and then sign contracts with American companies. In fact, it was clear to me that the intention was to have American companies get paid to "rebuild" the country after being devastated by the sanctions and by warfare.
And that is what happened. The interim government cancelled the contracts with the French and the Russians. contracts were signed with American companies to rebuild the country. State enterprises, which were run by Iraqis and, before the first Gulf war, brought the economy of Iraq up near First World levels, were sold off to foreign companies, run by foreigners, and Iraqis were then reduced to the typical laborer relationships found in any other Third World country.
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I still can't believe that anyone believed that the war in Afghanistan was going to result in democracy and women's rights. It was being fought by people who have no interest in democracy or women's rights. The US is allies with Saudi Arabia, a theocratic state that supports the Wahabbi movement. The US has waged war against regimes that were either democratic or popular: Mossadegh in Iran, Arbenz in Guatamala, Allende in Chile, the Sandanistas in Nicaragua, now Chavez in Venezuela. Meanwhile the US has supported the vilest of dictators -- the Shah of Iran, Pinochet in Chile; the US supported the religious fundamentalists against the secular Soviet vassal regime of Afghanistan, and the US removed the Hussein government which was at least secular. The US supports dictators and religious fanatics when it suits it purposes, and supports democracy only when it suits its own self interest.
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It is amusing (in a dark sort of way) to hear people talk about "women's rights" in regard to the war in Afghanistan. Women's advocacy groups who were familiar with Afghanistan were opposed to the war. This is exactly the sort of "useful idiot" type of thinking that leads to a lessening of freedom and democracy. Sure, the Taliban were horrible. Sure, the Serbs were abusing the Kosovar Albanians terribly. But advocating war in these instances served mainly to give the war mongers political capital and emboldened them to then wage war to destroy what little stability existed in other countries.
This is why I was against the war in Kosovo, and why I was against the war in Afghanistan. Because I knew that success in these wars, even if they managed to put into place a superficial veneer of "peace" and "freedom", would then lead to the mess we see in Iraq, to the imminent mess that may occur in Iran (if the nutcases have their way), to an anti-democratic interference in the affairs of Venezuela. Wars rarely solve the problems that you think they do; instead, they merely allow the powers that be an excuse to use war to solve
their problems.
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It is also interesting to hear how people insist that we are trying to install "freedom and democracy" on these areas when it is the people themselves in these areas who were so vocal against these wars. People did not want to live under the Taliban, but they did not want the US to go to war to remove them. Women were oppressed in Afghanistan, but women's advocacy groups were opposed to using war to bring them "freedom". People were glad to have Hussein removed from power, but they did not want the US to use warfare to do it.
Americans claim that they want to spread freedom and democracy around the world, but they do not want to listen to the people who are actually working on the ground in these countries for freedom and democracy; instead, they listen to the "exile groups" sponsored by the US government and composed of elites who will want to grab power for their own ends.
Kings were put to death long before 21 January 1793. But regicides of earlier times and their followers were interested in attacking the person, not the principle, of the king. They wanted another king, and that was all. It never occurred to them that the throne could remain empty forever. -- Albert Camus
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