Hi Doug,
>>Well, I disagree. War against al-Qaeda is as absurd to me as war against
>>the mafia. Al-Qaeda is not a nation, but an organization, and as such it
>>should be the target of an international law enforcement effort.
>
>According to official tales, which may or may not be true, al Qaeda
>has thousands of members, and became indistinguishable from the
>Taliban rulers of Afghanistan, with an army of many thousands more.
>That's a bit bigger that La Cosa Nostra. People use the crime
>metaphor a bit recklessly.
That's a good point. If al-Qaeda really was part of the Taliban, then we really would have been at war with Afghanistan. ObL certainly says there is a war against the US, and if he's speaking as a member of the Afghan government, then you're correct.
I'm open to this possibility, but I haven't seen anything to convince me of it yet. And is this really the position of the Bush Administration? I've always heard them say that the Taliban is harboring al-Qaeda. I've never heard anyone say they are indistinguishable.
Brett