At 03:20 PM 2/6/2003 -0600 Dan Minette wrote:
>If that's true, why are they wasting a golden opportunity in Afganistan?
I take exception to this.
First, the rest of the world has hardly borne their full share of the load
in rebuilding Afghanistan, and the US is stretched thin by the need to
defend South Korea, Western Europe (just see how infuriated they get when
we talk about leaving), Taiwan, and Afghanistan while preparing to attack
Iraq.
Secondly, I don't know what illusions you were under about how easy
rebuilding Afghanistan was going to be, but Kabul only fell a year ago, and
remnants of the Taliban and warlords remain in the mountains. Moreover,
Afghanistan did need to be rebuilt - there was never anything to *re*build.
Afghanistan needs to be built. A few weeks ago, I posted a list of
achievements in building Afghanistan that have already been accomplished in
only a year - from an article that was primarily devoted to criticizing
some of the short comings of our post-Afghanistan policy. Nevertheless, I
don't think that any fair assessor of this successes could call our
post-war record in Afghanistan a "blown opportunity."
Perhaps you think that the War on Terror should have stopped for 20 years
while we figured out how to build a free and prosperous Afghanistan from
scratch. I, however, think that it is perfectly reasonable to disagree
with that assessment. September 11th created a remarkable political
climate in the United States for pre-emptively securing the safety of the
US from external threats. This window of opportunity could not be missed.
> Helping to build/rebuild mosques,
>schools, roads, sanitary water facilities, sewage plants, etc. seems very
>reasonable. And, of course, working on eliminating land mines, but I'm
>guessing that's being done without much fanfare.
>
>If the Administration is actually doing all that, and not publicizing it,
>I'd be shocked, because it would mean that they lost their PR touch.
Alternatively, given the large difference between the highest economic
development achieved by Aghanistan and that achieved by Iraq, they don't to
lead *anyone* to believe that post-war Iraq will be "just like" post-war
Afghanistan.
Additionally, much of the work is probably being performed not by soldiers,
but by various charitable NGO's (with a good deal of official US support) -
and thus this stuff is harder to take credit for.
And lastly, given the difficulty we have had in getting support for the
attack on Iraq, there's probably been little time for playing up these side
issues - and indeed, they may even view the topic as a distraction, since
no doubt *somebody* will start arguing for more for Afghanistan no matter
what is being done there, and this will distract the agenda of the day from
Iraq to other topics.
JDG
_______________________________________________________
John D. Giorgis - [EMAIL PROTECTED]
"The liberty we prize is not America's gift to the world,
it is God's gift to humanity." - George W. Bush 1/29/03
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