> You contradict yourself here. First you say that the architects of the
> Afghanistan invasion believed it was in their "interests" to topple the
> Taliban.
Well, no. What was (presumably) in somebody's interest was to invade Afghanistan. Whether the Taliban was a reason or only a pretext remains to be established.
> what
> "threat" these people perceived from the Taliban, whatever it was it
> *surely* must not have had anything to do with the fact that the Taliban
> was hosting terrorists who organized spectacular international attacks
> against the US and elsewhere.
An earlier contributor to this thread suggested that the Taliban posed a "threat" not just to the US, but to China, Russia, Iran and (by implication) Pakistan and India, among others. So far as I know none of these powers had suffered any damage from the Taliban or from Al-Qaeda.
> Aren't spectacular
> terrorist attacks exactly the kind of thing that countries usually
> perceive as threats?
Do countries perceive at all? I think not. People perceive, and different people perceive different things. The US public certainly was shaken by the September 11 attacks, and some of the public no doubt perceived -- with much encouragement from the propaganda sector -- a tsunami of crazed towelheads ready to swarm ashore, scimitar between their teeth, and kill all our men and violate all our womenfolk.
Did any elite elements share this "perception"? I doubt it. Three thousand people -- hell, the car sector kills ten times that many every year. It's worth it, as Obie's hero Judge Posner would be the first to tell you. Did our elites here in the US tremble in their boots, worrying that Al-Qaeda might be ready to put down the mighty from their seats? I doubt it.
If anything, they saw it as an opportunity -- an opportunity to organize hysteria, chauvinism, moral panic, and a state-of-siege mentality. In this they were stunningly successful. September 11 was a godsend for them. If it hadn't existed, they might have been tempted to invent it.
> Here you have (1) a clear case of a country where
> attacks were being organized against various targets; followed by (2) an
> invasion of the terrorist-hosting country by a recent target of one of
> the attacks.
SA is making the homeland-security argument here. It didn't convince me when Mr Bush made it, and it doesn't convince me now.
--
Michael Smith mjs at smithbowen.net http://stopmebeforeivoteagain.org