-The opinion emanating from many list members seems to be, "Afghanistan -is better off now after US intervention." -Inherent in such a statement is a chauvinism based on an innate (white) -racial and "western" superiority complex, one that drives even those -on the "left" to let the word "civilizing" slip out of their mouths to -speak about what the US did in Afghanistan.
Oh bullshit-- I was against the war in Afghanistan but the fact is that it is the cheering of US troops by the Afghanistan people themselves that supports the "Afghanistan better off" argument. The country was on the brink of mass starvation before the intervention; that famine was averted (either because of the war or in any case) makes the deaths from the war rather minor in comparison.
This was an Afghani civil war, one that had been going on for a quarter of a century-- from the perspective of those within the country, this was just one more round in a series of factional fights supported by various outside powers. In each case, it was as much various Afghani factions using outside support as the other way around. Bin Laden was himself a master in his career of using first the US, then Pakistan, to support his internal interventions within Afghanistan. So even describing the Afghanis as purely passive players in the US intervention misses that broader history.
Race baiting the discussion serves nothing but to flatten analysis; it is a refusal to make an argument by logic and persuasion. And for that reason it makes progressive arguments incredibly unpersuasive, which is one reason the Right did so well on the arguments over the war.
-- Nathan Newman