Correction noted, Beagle
As to where OBL (may he fry in a pit of bacon fat next to Stalin) might go, you’re point is well taken with me, I don’t think he can escape, even if the CIA is after him. He would be no more welcome than a leper at a hot tub party.
I was only suggesting that to simplify my question, not to suggest it was even possible.
I feel that there is a fallacious aspect to this reasoning. Where is it written that we have any responsibility (not that we are incapable of helping) to avert a disaster not of our own making? Yes, it would be grand to help starving people, but it must remembered that we did not create the circumstances that have led to starvation of the Afghan population. Years of drought and corrupt mismanagement of resources by the Taleban regime are what have brought this to pass. The current military campaign is just another button on the coat.
If we were required per force to go in and scorch all of their growing land thus denying them the food that they need, I might feel differently. Imagine Al Qaeda detonating a nuclear device in, let’s say, Silicon Valley. What impact do you think that would have on our economy? How many people would die? Certainly more than a measley (in comparison) 500,000 people. Millions would die and the loss to our nation’s economy would be a staggering trillions beyond the trillion dollars that has already been lost from our stock market and economy. The enormity of the New York atrocity and not hardnosed military strategy compels us to think in such terms. This is the whirlwind bin Laden has sown for the Afghan people to reap in their misery. I can only hope that they will curse his name for centuries to come.
Just trying to contribute some perspective. Al Qaeda experiences no limits in their psychopathic hatred of the US. We are obliged to operate on that assumption and nothing less. That the Taleban have constructively interfered with our ability to render timely aid to the people of Afghanistan is no justification for us to feel complicit in the suffering imposed upon them by their own government. I see no reason that we cannot render immediate aid to the refugees that are flooding into Pakistan at this very moment. As to compromising our crucial goal of apprehending bin Laden and dismantling Al Qaeda, nothing must interfere with that. They have already made it patently clear what the penalty is for any laxity in bringing them to accounts.
I’m remined of Marlon Brando’s line to George C. Scott in The Formula.
The Taliban are Al Queda.
So, they have no limits, but you have a limit of 500000 dead Afghans?
It boils down to this: should you commit an atrocity to prevent an atrocity? Especially when the atrocity you fear is speculative?
This is off-topic, but I had to address it. Nope. The current military campaign is causing an exodus of people out of Afghanistan. Refugees are flooding the borders. Refugees mean refugee camps, with diseases and infant mortality, and being dependent on international aid. Its not a summer camp.
Where did I say that and how did you come up with such a baseless conjecture? I merely feel that eliminating the continuing and self-evident threat of bin Laden and Al Qaeda takes precedence over impeding our efforts to find them. Rectifying the evils imposed upon the Afghan people by the Taleban must take a back seat to this vital mission. And while you’re at it please tell me why it is that you do not perceive any further threat from these maggots? Every indication points towards a fervent wish on their part to repeat what happened on 9/11.
Nope. The current campaign wouldn’t even exist if the Taleban hadn’t directly abetted bin Laden and Al Qadea’s perpetration of the atrocity in New York. Please remember that we are not attacking Afghanistan. We are retaliating against a monstrous criminal act committed upon our soil. None of this would be necessary if bin Laden hadn’t been given refuge before and after the fact by the Taleban. To claim that we are responsible for the suffering of the Afghan people does not hold water. As I mentioned before, had none of this happened, we and several other nations would be pouring aid into Afghanistan instead of the bombs they alone have made necessary.
You said:
That’s where I came up with it. You seem like a decent guy. I think you didn’t mean to say it the way it came out.
Discussed on another thread.
This one, I think.
I didn’t claim the US was responsible for the suffering of the Afghan people. You agree with my position, that the US is adding to the suffering of the Afghan people, the vast majority of whom had nothing to do with 11 September. That was the point of your “button on the coat” comment. Please correct me if I’m wrong.
For the sake of clarity, the US was pouring aid into Afghanistan prior to 11 September. My point is that the US should now match its military efforts with its humanitarian efforts.
I have read recently that Muslism have a fundamentally different conceptualisation of nationality than what we Westphalian-influenced Westerners have. They tend to look at themselves as Muslims and as members of a tribe, than as citizens of a country. There is no strong sense of national identification, compared to Westerners and Asians who are very nation-orientated. So when you say, “We’re not attacking Afghanistan, we’re attacking the Taleban”, it just doesn’t really compute. And when they say, “You Christians attacking adherents of the faith of Islam, not hunting terrorists” that doesn’t compute to us. You have two different paradigms here. One gets people like you into a righteous anger about military retaliation on foreign soil. The other gets Indonesians combing night-clubs in Jakarta looking to beat up Americans.
Thank you, but beware. That sort of thinking might get you into trouble around here.
I’ve got to say that somewhere my point is being missed. I find no limit in the 500,000 Afghans that you have postulated. My comparison is one of relative threats. Prior to 9/11 the threat of jetliners being flown into skyscrapers was purely “speculative.” Now it most certainly is not.
Are you willing to become complacent so soon after such an atrocity merely because your conjectural abilities are unable to conceive of another more dire threat? Merely because of what has been said in the thread that you cite? Trust me, the atrocity in New York is just the beginning. However much I detest the thought of another such event happening, I am not so starry-eyed as to think that there are not at this very moment elements of Al Qaeda plotting an even more heinous crime against humanity.
The limitations of your imagination do not serve to allay my concerns in the least. Rather, without any intended insult, I would say that your limited imagination only causes me even greater worry. It palpably demonstrates that you and (most likely) other Americans are able to lull themselves back into a sense of complacency exactly when we must remain most vigilant. I tend to think that even my own worst case pondering cannot come up with plans that have probably already been made by Al Qaeda.
The US is not “adding” to the suffering of the Afghani people. The Taleban are the sole cause of the suffering of the Afghan people. Again, none of this would be happening if the Taleban were not accomplices in this atrocity. However, the Taleban happen to be profoundly complicit in this crime and no quarter must be given in our efforts to hunt down bin Laden and his cohorts. The fact that the Taleban have shown such callous disregard for human life and the lives of their own supposed countrymen has exactly nothing to do with our need to eliminate this dire threat first and foremost. However nice a sentiment the 37,000 MRE’s that we airdropped seem to be, they are a fart in a windstorm when compared to the scale of need that is present. Although speculative, it is quite possible that the airdropped food may result in increased Afghan casualties due to people wandering around in land mine strewn territory attempting to find these scant provisions. Feed the people at the Pakistani refugee camps, but do not let a single thing confound our dire need to apprehend bin Laden and his thugs.
One more time, we are not to blame for the starvation of the Afghan people. Their own government is the sole source of their suffering and the Taleban must be held accountable for this. Once our objectives are met we can afford the luxury of turning our attentions to humanitarian efforts within Afghanistan. We are most definitely not piling one atrocity upon another. The only atrocity that is being piled upon the one that already happened in New York is the one being perpetrated by the Taleban against their own supposed countrymen. The Taleban seem to have quite a knack for atrocities. It is why I propose either permanently incarcerating or executing them.