From: Hermit (hidden@lucifer.com)
Date: Fri Aug 09 2002 - 20:23:13 MDT
Still don't get it, do you, Joe?
Any "government" in Afghanistan is largely an artificial construct, a figment of Western imagination. Afghanistan is a tribal society (like most of the Middle East - including Iraq). No tribe in Afghanistan is sufficiently powerful to enforce its will on all the others, and cooperation is not a part of their heritage. Any group achieving dominance is hated and resented by all of the others, and the only thing that can unite them, temporarily, is an invader. Whoever the world imposes as a "government" will require support forever as they "defend from the inside" (even if they do, as now, control the funds from the drug trade) or the situation will simply collapse again. This is as true today as ever.
The problem is not with the Afghans. It is with the fact that the World insists that the Afghans support an alien and inevitably inequitable system. The chances of this ever functioning satisfactorily are close to non-existent. Thus, counter to your assertions, the US will not be leaving Afghanistan, unless it is "abandoned". And of course, any time they leave their enclave, they will take losses. Not large losses, unless their enemies "get lucky", but continuous losses, which will add up over time. And while they sit in their enclave they can do nothing effective but rather engender resentment and a continuing and not insignificant expenditure.
As the Afghans know, and America is discovering, it is tough when nobody loves you.
Hermit
---- This message was posted by Hermit to the Virus 2002 board on Church of Virus BBS. <http://virus.lucifer.com/bbs/index.php?board=51;action=display;threadid=26011>
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Wed Sep 25 2002 - 13:28:52 MDT