These are the Pashtun tribesmen who are the primary recruits of the Taliban in fighting our troops.
After 10 years, they still have no idea why our troops came to Af-Pak.
Even the translators and police who work with us know almost nothing of 9/11 and what Bin Laden did.
Holding elections and telling them to go back to their mud huts and caves and things will be wonderful is ridiculous. Can someone explain this whole nation building thing to me again? [I posted this over at LP, thought I'd share it here as well.]
Couldn't you guys at least pretend you watched the video?
The point is that these Pashtun are so isolated and ignorant they have no idea what the Towers were, what al-Qaeda did, etc.
How can they ever vote meaningfully if they possess so little information?
You know, we had the old program from the Fifties to actually help Afghanistan, to transform these backward areas, to build dams to control flooding and make irrigation of these arid eastern Pashtun lands so they could have real agriculture, not just hardscabble opium farming. We have been in Afghanistan for many decades, other than the Soviet years of occupation.
It would cost a tiny fraction of what we are spending to conquer them if we would instead educate them about the world and let them choose their own future.
It would cost a tiny fraction of what we are spending to conquer them if we would instead educate them about the world and let them choose their own future.
OK, so I watch the darned video, TC.
I think it would cost an even tinier fraction to stay the hell out of places like that completely and eschew "educating" and "helping" folks who want none of it.
The Afghans may be astoundingly ignorant, but unfortunately we Americans are just stupid. Probably as stupid as the Russian people who could be conned into sending their sons into such hellholes to no discernible end except perhaps for lining the pocket of the usual suspects.
I think it would cost an even tinier fraction to stay the hell out of places like that completely and eschew "educating" and "helping" folks who want none of it.
I agree. I oppose all nationbuilding.
But given the need to take out al-Qaeda and Bin Laden (who did claim credit for 9/11), you have to do something.
I prefer bringing them into the modern world and not fighting them or just giving handouts.
We have been in Afghanistan for a long time, taking up where the Germans left off. Only during the Soviet invasion were we not there.
But given the need to take out al-Qaeda and Bin Laden
Bin Ladin died not long after disavowing responsibility for the events at the World Trade Center. A flurry of phony videos and audio tapes were thereafter released in his name. These productions were fully as bad as what the public was finally fed in response to longstanding requests to see Zero's BC. Bin Ladin is, in fact, not wanted for the FBI for the what transpired on 9/11 because there is no evidence tying him to the event.
I personally believe that "al Qaeda" had nothing to do with the WTC attacks and neither had Mohammed Atta & Co. You will notice that in all the flim-flam of the 9/11 anniversary "celebrations," the iconic rogues' gallery portrait of the nineteen hijackers that was flashed on the screen with such frequency in the aftermath of the events that day was completely missing. These guys are as conspicuous in their absence in connection with this commemoration as were the first responders of 9/11 themselves at the event in NYC last week.