Yes, we all know that. (Actually I’m not sure about the “other groups” part.) The question is whether staying there indefinitely is the best way to deal with this.
Yes, also dealt with already. The question is, is that preventable?
This is absolutely 100% nonsense and it calls your knowledge of history into question. The Taliban is awful and there could be revenge killings, but they’re not going to murder several million people. They were in power for the better part of a decade and didn’t do anything like that. It’s not that they’re too good for it, it’s just not what they are about.
… do you know what a harem is? We’re talking about Islamic fundamentalists, not the court of a medieval Sultan.
Unfortunately this isn’t going so well right now because so much of the country is out of control. You need to explain how the occupation is going to prevent this in the long term.
It’s interesting that I’m taking this position in the argument because, like I said, I’ve never argued for an immediate pullout and I’m skeptical things in Afghanistan can be stabilized in time for the proposed withdrawals. But I’m finding most of the arguments in favor of staying are pretty weak. Yes, Afghanistan would probably revert to Taliban control if the U.S. left. Then again, the Taliban already controls part of the country and gets money from the U.S. (with the Karzai government and its associated hangers-on as an intermediary). The current Afghan government can’t do much of anything about the drug trade or about areas like Waziristan. The occupation hasn’t helped much either.
No, it doesn’t. If you’re talking only about party leadership, maybe you’re right. The public is pretty divided on this. It looks like about half the people think the war is going OK and the occupation should continue, and half think it’s going badly and it’s time to leave. And it looks like a little more than half think it wasn’t worth going in the first place.
Iraq still isn’t like Japan or Korea, but it did have a history of stable (if awful) government and an established civil society, which Afghanistan doesn’t. The whole country also had niceties like running water, electricity, and a middle class, and had suffered through several bad years of civil conflict. Afghanistan has always been pretty disparate, and it’s never been rebuilt after Soviets invaded 30 years ago.