[lbo-talk] Re: Afghanistan [was: query: Arundhati Roy]

info at pulpculture.org info at pulpculture.org
Tue Mar 7 16:39:59 PST 2006


At 07:18 PM 3/7/2006, mike larkin wrote:
>But the bottom line, as Chris said, is that there was a jihadi
>infrastructure in place in Afghanistan that posed an immediate and grave
>threat to the world. Antiwars never had a plan for dealing with it and
>this accounts for their lack of credibility on the issue.

So, what are the specific things that have improved? I know Chris waved at things going on in other countries, but I haven't seen a specific lists of the benefits achieved by the war. I'd think it'd be important to demonstrate the achievements, wouldn't it? Surely someone who wanted to say the world is worse off would have to line up evidence such as greater poverty, disease, turmoil as a direct result of the war (and not as something else.)

I mean, it's all well and good to say that individual countries are now better off and that balances out the death and destruction we've caused.

But I wouldn't accept that argument from this government and so I see it as a little bit of the kind of world-stage posturing that Max Weber once described -- a kind of moral- entrepreneurialism that performs a sleight of hand only possible because, from a lefty perspective, if something is good for the US, that's bad. Bt if it's good for underdog countries, then it's good. Something taken on principle, not on evidence.

Bitch | Lab http://blog.pulpculture.org



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