I listen and I speak!
Dwayne, what you wrote is the polar opposite of Roy -- you make a coherent argument, relying on facts, analysis, and reason. What Roy does is emotional spray. If what you wrote and what Roy writes were to come into physical contact, they would be mutually annihilate in an explosion of gamma rays.
I think the world was very unfortunate to have the most incompetent US administration in maybe history, run by people with an insane ideology, on 9/11. It is also true that a coalition of regional powers would have been better (Moscow actually proposed a mutual strike against the Taliban in 1999, is the historic backer of the Northern Alliance, and is generally believed by people knowledgable in this area to have greatly facilitated the invasion). However, Bush had to Look Tough for domestic political reasons, and ideological reasons as well. They should also have actually tried to rebuild Afghanistan -- this would however also have gotten them charges of imperialism no doubt.
Nevertheless, I think it is very difficult to deny that the region and the world are not much better off without a bunch of lunatic thugs actively trying to destabilize the region, further fucking up already fucked-up places like Chechnya, Kashmir, and Uzbekistan, and providing infrastructure and protection to people like bin Laden and Khattab. I mean, Good God, man. What do you think Islam Karimov would do in reaction, not just to some rifle-waving protesters and jail-breakers, but to friggin' Talibs, who were well on their way to wiping out what was left of the NA and keeping on going?
I must say talking to people from Uzbekistan (there are a lot of them here) is what really changed my mind. They live in complete fear and disgust of the "Wahhabis," as Talib-types are called down there. They have no sympathy for them at all. They have no hostility to the invasion whatsoever. In fact they have gratitude.
--- Dwayne Monroe <idoru345 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> Of course, it's pointless to write this and
> undoubtedly, no one's listening...but still.
>
>
Nu, zayats, pogodi!
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