The depth and breadth of the cancers riddling Afghanistan really aren't known to us. You don't read about them in our newspapers. Lord knows our politicians won't raise them, that is if they knew about them. Our generals are in full blown cheerleader mode so they won't get into this stuff. NATO's leaders are too busy telling you we're winning to let this reality get in their way.
The hard fact is that, even if we were able to completely wipe out the Taliban tomorrow for all time, it wouldn't save Afghanistan. It wouldn't.
Getting rid of the Taliban won't get rid of radical Islamic fundamentalism, only their variety of it. The same sort of radical fundamentalism is embraced by the guys we've accepted as our allies, the Northern Alliance leaders and their people. It's the very way of life of this place, not some aberration introduced by the Taliban.
If you still hold any illusions about what NATO is doing and can do for Afghanistan, you need an eye-opener. Here's a good place to start:
www.rawa.org
RAWA is the Revolutionary Association of Women of Afghanistan. They'll show you the true face of Afghanistan, not just in the south but in the north.
Go to their site. Click on "news archives" and read away until you've had a stomach full. Once you've opened your eyes, this debate looks entirely different.
3 comments:
I think the first poster should take a deep breath, clear his head, do some gardening and go for a walk - get a dog perhaps. make friends.
This was a good opinion piece, thank you free speech.
DIP - I doubt there's anything in what I write that NATO isn't already well aware of. What I desire is, frankly, irrelevant to this problem. What I'm actually trying to point out is that, in terms of our stated objectives, we can't achieve them by ignoring these other threats. If the whole house is ablaze there's not much point in only trying to fight it in the kitchen. Check out the RAWA web site and you'll see what I mean.
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