If we get our hands on Osama bin Laden relatively quickly, will/should the Taliban still be “punished” for giving him refuge over recent years?
Yes. And they should also be punished for the unspeakable cruelty with which they governed Afghanistan.
Yes, I believe that Osama bin Laden was given full rein to his evil plans by the Taliban leaders. He operated with their full approval and assistance. The Taliban group has put on an act of being benevolent hosts who really didn’t know what their guest was up to. They are just as guilty and contemptible as Osama bin Laden. The Taliban needs to be destroyed, so that they can’t bring another country to their knees.
The Taliban kep asking for proof of his guilt, and almost in the same sentence threaten to strike at the U.S. if we do anything to try to get him ourselves.
They obviously mean more terrorism, so I would agree - these people are fully supporting his activities and we should take every opportunity to put them out of business - but who will take over? Will we just install another government who will resent us when we pull out? Is it possible that it could be any worse than the present?
I think we did a good job with Germany and Japan.
Rebuilding the economies of Germany and Japan were much easier than any potential rebuilding of Afghanistan. There was a lot more to start with in those countries.
Afghanistan is one of the poorest countries in the world. It would take one hell of a Marshall Plan to get it back in shape. I doubt the Afghans would allow a U.S. general to set up its government either as the Japanese did. (oversimplifying greatly here)
I’m not interested in ‘punishing’ them as much as I am interesting in just eradicating them so that they no longer pose a threat. They have proven themselves to be the enemy - that’s all we need to know. They have to go.
So does Saddam Hussein, for that matter. And Syria, Sudan, Libya, and other hostile countries had better get with the program REAL quick and denounce terrorism and take actions that prove they mean it, or they have to go too.
It was recently in the news that the Taliban was explicitly told recently (but before the attacks) that would be held accountable if anything like this occurred.
Afghanistan has never been any kind of industrial nation.
The amount of money that it would take to return them to a condition that they would find satifactory may not be that much.
A few power plants, some good water works, and equipment to fix their roads would be tremendously better than things are today.
I imagine their housing and public structures would be fixed by them pretty quickly if they didn’t feel like someone was gonna blow another hole it the following week.
Clearly I am exagerating a bit. But, it is not like we need to replace a destroy industrial complex. It has never existed there. Great portions of the country have never had electricity.
Punishment is not an worthwhile objective of foreign policy or even war. And it has never worked, except for the punishment the Allies in WWI inflicted on Germany, which sure taught them never to do it again.
Punishment is one of the legitimate objectives of justice should anyone be brought to trial.
That said, the Taliban is harboring a bunch of murderers after the fact and has done so for some time, even after he committed other acts and the Taliban guaranteed that he was not a danger. Their guarantee was worthless and their behavior abomnible. We are at war with them and they are a danger to us. Fortunately we are more of a danger to them.
Regardless of the Taliban’s relation to Bin Laden, most members of the Taliban deserve to die a lengthy and painful death for their crimes against humanity. Just look at their human rights record (i.e. massacres of religious dissidents, the worst treatment of women in the world, the virtual abolition of art and culture)–the people of Afghanistan couldn’t have been much worse off if the Manson family ruled that nation. The Taliban have governed Afghanistan with the same degree of moral authority as the Nazis, Khmer Rouge, and Stalin governed their people–none.
This is a simple no brainer, they had their chance and blew it.
Do they deserve it? Yes.
Should we? No.
We can’t just go about toppling any government that pisses us off. It takes governments, even ones we disagree with, to make the world work, and the United States can only harm itself by taking on the attitude that it can be the arbiter of who rules other countries. It is out meddling in other governments that fueled all the hate directed towards us in the first place. How well do you really think that any sort of government installed by the United States is going to go over over there. I’ll tell you one thing- it isn’t working in Saudi Arabia.