Taliban-controlled Afghanistan was invaded because it was identified as the sanctuary for the Bin Laden terror apparatus, and therefore the most obvious state target for the Bush administration, under intense pressure by the terror-stricken and vengeful US population and itself driven to respond the organizers of the assault on the WTC and Pentagon. The administration would have undoubtedly have preferred to tie the 9/11 attackers to Saddam's Iraq, which the neocons had targeted even before taking office, and it spent the next two years manufacturing that link, but the invasion of Afghanistan and overthrow of the Taliban, widely vilified in the West, was not in contradiction to that objective, and was seen, in fact, as a useful proving ground for that later exercise.
Currently, the US strategy in the Pashtun-controlled areas of Pakistan and Afghanistan seems to be the same as in Iraq: a temporary "surge" of US troops and money to split the insurgents, quell the local uprisings, and integrate the "moderates" into strengthened central governments and armies capable of maintaining order and serving US energy and other strategic interests in those regions.
Those balls are all still very much up in the air.
----- Original Message ----- From: "Chris Doss" <lookoverhere1 at yahoo.com> To: <lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org> Sent: Sunday, June 07, 2009 4:52 PM Subject: Re: [lbo-talk] another DH loves BHO in Cairo
Hmmm, what danger might a messianic group of cultists that harbors people who organize massive terror attacks pose to neighboring populations. I wonder.
--- On Sun, 6/7/09, SA <s11131978 at gmail.com> wrote:
> From: SA <s11131978 at gmail.com>
> Subject: Re: [lbo-talk] another DH loves BHO in Cairo
> To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org
> Date: Sunday, June 7, 2009, 4:41 PM
> Michael Smith wrote:
>
> > One would like to hear more about the danger that the
> Taliban posed to Russia, Iran, China and so forth.
> > [...]
> > Which brings us back to the Unitary Hegemon problem.
> Did the US as such -- assuming there is such a thing,
> possessing the capacity for action -- then act against its
> own interests? Or at random, without regard for its
> interests? Or did one gang of elite gangsters have an
> interest that the other gangs didn't share, and was that
> gang able to take the Marines out for a joyride, either
> because they Bogarted the other gangs or because the other
> gangs didn't much care?
> > The third hypothesis seems the most likely to me, but
> it's all conjecture. I'd like to see a coherent account that
> gives *any* intelligible and credible explanation for the
> Iraq and Afghanistan adventures. I would greet it like a
> long-lost brother.
> > The idea that the rag-tag Taliban was a "threat" to
> every great power in the world doesn't ring true for me,
> alas.
>