[lbo-talk] The Afghan War as a "Loss Leader"

Chris Doss lookoverhere1 at yahoo.com
Thu Jun 30 15:09:36 PDT 2005


It's totally anecdotal, but all the Uzbeks I've talked to about this in Moscow (where we have a sizeable Uzbek community) think that killing Talibs is an awesome idea in principle. The only good Talib is a dead Talib, in their view. (They are all Muslim BTW.) I remember for instance one Uzbek guy I met a year or so ago who thought the US was practically the avenging army of Allah. I haven't asked them about their views post-war. But in any case they believe that "Wahhabis" (the word they use to refer to Islamist Talib-types) are an immediate and presetnt danger and far more to be feared than phantasms like "Western imperialism (TM)."

--- Dwayne Monroe <idoru345 at yahoo.com> wrote:


> Chris Doss:
>
> ...the Taliban were aggressively promoting war
> everywhere from the North Caucasus
> to Northern Iran to Western China. When the US (and
> it was actually a US-Russia
> operation BTW) eliminated the Talibs from power,
> they headed off a military
> conflagration that was threatening the entire area.
> This BTW is why Afghanistan's
> neighbors supported and continue to support the US
> morally and materially...
>
> ===================
>
>
> Accepted.
>
>
> However, I suspect that the further away in time we
> travel from the 'Taliban
> moment' -- the period of their rule and, therefore,
> maximum threat posture to the
> region -- and the longer Afghanistan remains a
> playground for warlords, Pakistani
> intelligence, shoot/detain-first-ask-zero-questions
> US forces/intel operatives,
> still lethal Talib remnants, drug traffickers,
> Western mercenaries,
> yet-to-really-start rebuilding 'rebuilding'
> contractors,
> what-the-hell-are-they-doing NGOs and a host of
> other elements I'm not aware of,
> the less kindly disposed the people of the region
> may be towards this presence.
>
> Indeed, there may be rumblings of this afoot now
> (and I'm not referring to the
> Jihadi sympathizer camp) but we may be too focused
> on either 'Americocentrism' as
> you put it (which, in the current context means
> opposition to invasion) or
> celebrations of Talib-neutralization to notice.
>
>
> In short, it all looks good (strictly from a 'hurray
> the Taliban are gone' POV)
> in 2005 but we shouldn't be confident this will
> persist into the future.
>
> The overthrow of the Taliban, in hindsight from, say
> 2015, may be viewed as only
> a pause in the development of a movement which, so
> long as the growth conditions
> remain (and they surely seem to in post-Talib
> Afghanistan) will show itself again
> and again.
>
> So, to the extent that the post-invasion period
> fails to address the conditions
> that lead to Taliban (or some variant) resurgence,
> the entire enterprise can be
> called a failure.
>
>
>
>
>
> .d.
>
>
>
> ---------
>
> http://monroelab.net/ <<<<<>>>>> giving up our
> tears to a neon sky
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>
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>

Nu, zayats, pogodi!

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