Just when I start to question why we should be in or stay in Afghanistan, I read stuff like this:
Suspected Taliban militants have executed a 7-year-old boy, accusing him of spying for the government, officials in southern Afghanistan said Thursday.
But… does it talk about the Taliban, or the culture in the region? And if that is the culture, is it “salvageable”, or worth saving if it is?
I’m dubious. And then I wonder about the 7 year olds we’ve drone bombed, not on purpose, but dead none the less, and I start to get into moral relativism infinite loops.
And I revert back to “this probably ain’t worth doing”… especially when I consider that our current President would give all the sacrifice away in a heart beat if the SEIU asked him to.
We need to neuter jihadist Islam, and Taliban and Al-Queda need some serious killing, but I’m dubious places like Afghanistan or Iraq can be anything other than just neutered. I doubt their joining the league of effective democracies is really on the table. Our military may pull it out, if anybody can, they can, but I’m starting to wonder about the cost.
If it were up to me, I’d kill their leaders and bomb/attack any terrorist concentrations, and also ban Muslim immigration to the US. I think that would work better and be a lot cheaper.
June 10th, 2010 at 10:46 am
War from the safety of the air is possible only if we have good intelligence, which we cannot get unless we have skin in the game on the ground. Air war against a government worked in Serbia because there were fixed installations the Serbs needed to protect. The Taliban insurgents have no such vulnerability.
Banning Muslims from the US would work if you don’t mind the bad diplomatic effects of such overkill and you believe that you can ever change just one thing. Theories always sound good in isolation when the theorist can control predictions of the expected results. But dealing with people and countries doesn’t yield well to such theories.
Our controlling the breeding places of international terrorists will be a long slog with no available simple and affordable strategy.
June 10th, 2010 at 10:54 am
I said attacks – I’d send ground troops as needed. They just wouldn’t live there, or run around trying to teach cavemen democracy.
As to diplomacy… like I care. Supposedly us fighting back in any fashion messes up diplomacy, at least this doesn’t cost us much.
June 10th, 2010 at 5:00 pm
Isolationism looks pretty good right now. It would save us a bundle of money and teach America to be self-sufficient again. Nothing we do is good in the eyes of the world, so let’s pull out of everywhere and cut all foreign aid. No more government sponsored humanitarian efforts beyond our borders & territories. Our message to the world: “You’re right, America is bad. We’ll go home and not bother you anymore. Just please return the favor and not bother us. By the way, if you do bother us, you better make the first punch count, because you won’t get a second one.”