This is why we haven't won, and won't win, in Afghanistan. The entire region is factioned by tribes. What we need to do is set them fighting each other, withdraw, and let what happens, happen--until they start supporting those who attack us again.
Otherwise, we're going to wind up like Kipling's "Young British Soldier":
When you're wounded and left on Afghanistan's plains,
And the women come out to cut up what remains,
Jest roll to your rifle and blow out your brains
An' go to your Gawd like a soldier.
In my opinion, we screwed up in Afghanistan by not doing what we did in Japan: fully occupying the country, writing a constitution for them, and setting up a (temporary) puppet government. And look at the poor oppressed Japanese now. Maybe in today's political climate that wouldn't have been possible. But when Abdul Rahman had to flee the country, accepting asylum in Italy, to avoid execution for converting to Christianity, I was so disgusted that we let them write their laws that way. We used to think our ideas were the good ones.
ReplyDeleteAh, but as any good post-modern post-imperialism individual knows, fully occupying a country and messing with its culture = greater evil than perpetrated by said culture.
ReplyDeleteI'd honestly prefer the occupation and education route, myself. Barring that as a possibility, though, I'd say just let them kill each other, and bomb them occasionally when they try to come after us.
Can't quit thinking, though about the girls who try to get an education and whose schools are burned by the Taliban. They didn't ask for that. I wish we could fix it for them.
ReplyDeleteAt least they're still playing soccer in their soccer stadiums -afaik - those haven't been re-re-converted back to execution arenas.
The Taliban burns schools so that none of their people can get an honest, unbiased, non-religious education. An educated populace wouldn't permit a government like the Taliban to maintain power. They have to keep their people ignorant--otherwise, they'll start to read and interpret their holy book for themselves, and realize just how badly the've been lied to.
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