" . . . Militarily conquering Kabul was a foregone conclusion from day one that the bombing started. But it may define pyrric victory." -- Nathan Newman
Bad things that nobody has heard about may have happened, and some bad things we know have happened, and some bad things may yet happen, but from any demi-rational standpoint the Bushies have to be very pleased with the progress of the war at this point. It's hasn't gone quite the direction they might have hoped -- there is little progress towards a coalition government, and Pashtun participation is nowhere is sight, but forcing the enemy into the hills is certainly preferable to letting them run cities, possess heavy equipment, and operate from military bases.
The Iraqi war went much this way too. Before the fact, there was much angst about the power of the Iraqi army ("fourth largest in the world," or something like that; has weapons of mass destruction; yadda yadda yadda). They folded like a cheap suit and the angsters looked foolish. Now the peace movement-- both its rational and irrational components--looks foolish. Maybe it will be vindicated by some subsequent string of debacles, but basing one's politics on such a contingency is problematic.
In a related vein, ChuckG makes fun of my stipulation that if there is no terrorism for some period of time, the intervention 'worked.' If one assumes no such terrorism would have been forthcoming, then such derision is appropriate, albeit insupportable for lack of such omniscience. But without such an assumption, what other conceivable test could there be?
We could also see the demolition of another pseudo-radical thesis about U.S. policy -- that its purpose is to cause mass casualties. Hakki's 'mountain of skulls.' I also recall words in this vein from Chomsky, who I otherwise agree with on a lot of stuff. If a creditable relief effort is started, with the benefit of the territory won by the bomb-aided Northern Alliance, all that rhetoric would be exposed as more hysterics.
Most clear in all this is that, diverse radical ideologies notwithstanding, the pacifist impulse runs very deep here. The worst problem in this regard is not the impulse itself, which has its own respectable philosophical basis, but the apparent lack of awareness of it.
You folks really, really are not prepared to face up to the mayhem logically implied by your own assorted revolutionary positions. The use of force by somebody cannot be escaped as long as there are retrograde elements (such as al-qaida or OBL) prone to use force themselves.
mbs