Although I read LBO, I'm just a lurker on the list but I must say I don't totally understand where Doug & some of you are coming from. For myself I supported Kosovo but not this war. To me they are very different. Many leftists (Doug, Galbraith) seem to feel just the reverse of me about which war might be considered just.
In Kosovo, we were enabling Albanians to stay in their homes rather than being murdered and forced to flee, thus averting a refugee problem that could long-term destabilize a critical area of the world.
In Afghanistan, we are driving people from their homes, likely destabilizing a critical area of the world, certainly causing great suffering. Refugees, long-term, cause huge problems, and for decades.
Kosovo was winnable and we won. Afghanistan? well, hope it is but I am worried.
Kosovo was on behalf on Muslims and had the *potential* of creating much goodwill. (This was not realized because we didn't commit ground troops, didn't go in earlier -- in Bosnia -- and haven't been willing enough to stay now.)
Afghanistan is against Muslims and has the potential of creating additional hostility. I don't think the bombing is making our world situation strategically better at all.
So, how come it looks so different to other people on this list? (for me, the rationale that Afghanistan is "harboring" Osama binLaden seems particularly lame -- as though we had justified attacking the rural area that the FBI covered with agents seeking the abortion clinic bomber (can't think of his name right now) who was living in the wild in Virginia or NC or somewhere, likely in caves, there - probably with some (religiously-motivated) sympathy and help from locals. They never caught him as I recall. It's not like Afghans or the Afghan govt attacked the WTC.) JMHO.
I'm not sure where other people are coming from except of course a sense of (understandable) upset. Yet more than one relative of WTC victims urged (writing letters, appearing on TV despite public pressures for vengeance) against doing this, so this is *not* a universal or unanimous reaction.
regards,
Anne Peticolas
<petico at io.com> p.s. I am very interested in what General Wesley Clark thinks of this war but though I understand he's a CNN commentator nowadays I haven't heard him -- nor am I sure how candid he'll be being.