Quoth Brian Holtz: ----- It's pretty bizarre that LP radicals would object to this press release. -----
Not really. ----- It seems that as anarchists they cannot allow themselves to endorse any action of the tax-financed U.S. military, no matter how laudable. ----- Not all LP radicals are anarchists -- but even as an anarchist, I would have been able to endorse a proper course of military action in Afghanistan, and in fact gave the rough outline of such an endorsable course in numerous discussions of the improper course which was followed. >From the press release: ----- On Sunday, October 7, the United States launched military action against Osama bin Laden, the terrorist believed to be responsible for the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. The U.S. military also struck military bases controlled by the Taliban regime of Afghanistan, which has sheltered and reportedly assisted bin Laden. ----- This was not a tenable or credible statement at the time, and events proved it to be wholly unfounded. The US did not launch "military action against Osama bin Laden" and "also [strike] military bases controlled by the Taliban." The US launched military action against the Taliban, beginning with immediate direct aid to the Northern Alliance and proceeding to seizure of Kabul and other key cities, with the declared aim of "regime change." This went on for about six weeks before the US deigned to turn its attention toward al Qaeda, and it then did so in an ineffectual and lackadaisical manner. The results speak for themselves -- even with "international assistance," the US project in Afghanistan remains an abject failure. The US is in its sixth year of occupation of Afghanistan, and the grand total of its achievements is that it can claim to control of a few military bases and, on behalf of the new regime it installed, a few city blocks in downtown Kabul. The press release was issued toward the beginning of the farce, but the farce's character was plainly visible at the time of the release. It was, and remains, a severe embarrassment to the LP. Tom Knapp
