<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN"> <HTML><HEAD> <META http-equiv=Content-Type content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1"> <META content="MSHTML 5.50.4611.1300" name=GENERATOR> <STYLE></STYLE> </HEAD> <BODY bgColor=#ffffff> <DIV>Mark Pavlick: > Are most Afghans Do Nothings, since nearly all Afghan > opinion, including RAWA, opposed the bombing? I'm sure that most Germans opposed Allied bombing of their country in the 1940s as well. Fact is, the Western intervention not only rid the Afghans of their Taliban oppressors, it smashed up an open network of fanatics devoted to killing as many "infidels" as they could and sent them into Pakistan and into hiding (read Ahmed Rashid's "Taliban" and see how Afghanistan became the prime staging area for Islamic/Wahabbi terror). Do you not think that this staved off more attacks and thus saved lives? On top of everything else, as Oxfam reported in January, the toppling of the Taliban helped to avert a famine, saving even more countless lives -- far more than were killed by US bombs. I notice that people like Chomsky aren't using the famine angle anymore; and instead of admitting they were wrong, they have simply lapsed into silence, or pretend that the intervention provoked starvation in the first place. While RAWA was indeed against the bombing (they favored an internal rebellion), they recently admitted that Afghanistan, while not perfect by any standard, is now much more open in which to operate than it was under the Taliban. Indeed, RAWA is happy to see them go. > Is Michael Howard, respected British conservative and Foreign > Affairs contributor, a Do Nothing? He said that "many people would > have preferred a police operation conducted under the auspices of the > United Nations on behalf of the international community as a whole, > against a criminal conspiracy whose members should be hunted down and > brought before an international court, where they would receive a > fair trial and, if found guilty, be awarded an appropriate sentence.". > Should American progressives therefore embrace positions at > the extreme right of Foreign Affairs - to Howard's right - or risk > being labeled Do Nothings? Fine -- and what would this fictitious police force have done differently when it came to combat? > Shouldn't we bomb Tel Aviv? Aren't there at least some > "pre-modern", maybe even "7th century",  aspects to the pursuit of > total control of the West Bank, favored by many in Israel? Don't "we" > therefore get to drop bombs on Israel and kill lots of innocent > people, in a noble effort to help them towards modernity? If not, why > not? This is a silly dodge, employed by those who look asinine on Afghanistan. DP </DIV></BODY></HTML>