joanna bujes wrote:
>
> And the U.S. is going to be able to understand, negotiate with, and subdue
> people who have these kinds of relations? Who are fighting on their own
> turf? Who are able to live on 500 calories a day? By doing what:
> indiscriminately killing and starving civilians.
>
> I don't think so.
The USSR had not only the Afghanistan people (or many of them) on the other side but (a) a superpower and (b)the problem of maintaining legitimacy in a global setting. By the conditions of that struggle within the framework of the Cold War the USSR found its strategic and tactical options limited.
>From the war in the Philippines which horrified Mark Twain to the
present, the U.S. has never felt any compunction about "indiscriminately
killing and starving civilians." It may do that. What or who is going to
stop it.
All it needs to do to "declare victory" is to create a circle of death around a handfull of U.S. bases, the peacefulness of which will illustrate to the whole world how the U.S. brough peace to Afghanistan.
I hope the U.S. casualties are very very high. That is the only thing that could stand between the people of Afghanistan and massive death. Doug is probably right. The U.S. can, as he claims, reduce Afghanistan to a desert. Believe Bush and his lieutenants when they tell us this war will last longer than the present generation. It is an endless war, an endless rain of death from the skies.
Carrol