Quoth Brian Holtz: ----- TK) 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 (TK
I thought you "oppose increasing the size, scope or power of government at any level or for any purpose". ----- I do. Note the difference in tenses, though. What I believe now and stated in 2006 is not necessarily what I believed and stated in 2001. ----- Expanding the allegedly theft-financed budget of the Pentagon to go fight in a nation 12 time zones away seems like an increase in the size and scope of the federal government. ----- The assumption that the operation I recommended would necessarily have entailed an increase in the Pentagon's budget is not necessarly a safe assumption. ----- If you can advocate new spending for a new kind of military action in a new venue (while reducing the overall amount of military spending and kinds of military action and places where it acts), then why can't I advocate school vouchers (while reducing the overall amount of education spending and kinds of education spending and eliminating all government schools)? ----- I don't recall ever saying that you can't advocate school vouchers, whether or not I advocate new spending. In point of fact, however, I did not advocate new spending for a new kind of military action in a new venue. Both the type of action and the venue were old, and the increased spending was minimal and debatable. ----- Are you saying that OBL has to be in a gun sight for the first sentence to be true? Are you saying that no Taliban military bases came under attack from Oct 7 to Oct 14? ----- I am saying that the entire focus of US operations in Afghanistan for the first six weeks was the destruction of the Taliban regime, and that only after that did al Qaeda become a significant objective -- when in fact the US could have gone directly and effectively for al Qaeda and for all practical purposes ignored the Taliban had it chosen to do so. ----- It's absurd to suggest that al Qaeda's ability to use Afghanistan as a base for global terrorism training and logistics hasn't been substantially impaired by U.S. action in Afghanistan. ----- It's absurd to suggest that the point of the invasion of Afghanistan was, or should have been, to "substantially impair" al Qaeda's ability to use Afghanistan as a base for global terrorism training and logistics. The point of the operation should have been to liquidate al Qaeda's facilities and command and control structures or, failing that, to substantially damage those facilities and structures, not just get them to move those facilities and structures elsewhere on six weeks' notice. Thus far there's no evidence that the invasion of Afghanistan in any way substantially negatively impacted al Qaeda's ability to conduct operations. They've conducted operations on a larger scale, at a higher tempo, and with more success since 9/11 and the invasion of Afghanistan than they did before 9/11 and the invasion of Afghanistan. They've conducted numerous operations in Indonesia. They've bombed London, Madrid and Ankara. They're going toe to toe with Musharraf's forces in Afghanistan. And they've killed hundreds or thousands of US military personnel who were gift-wrapped and shipped to them courtesy of the DoD, to the slaughterhouse we built for them in Iraq.
