This whole scenario involving ground troops imho could become extremely
protracted and costly
for the US.
============================
A ground war in Afghanistan would be extremely protracted and costly for
the US, unequivocably, and Powell and Rumsfeld both know this. The most
effective way to eliminate Bin Laden would be reinforcement and
reorganization of the CIA to go back into the business of assasination
and militant-hunting in the Middle East. The theory is that this would
cause fewer civilian casualties - but, of course, it has its own set of
potential problems, including lack of support from allies and repercussions
for the very freedoms that allegedly we'd be fighting for. The US is in
a bit of a quandry - everyone wants Bin Laden and his associates to be
flushed-out and arrested, but nobody knows HOW they want this done in
order to minimize civilian casualties and maintain the principles of
international law, justice, and the humane aspects of Western civilization.
I can't imagine that the people who did this didn't take this quandry into
account to use to their advantage... wish THEY were so humanistic in their
thinking about the whole situation...
Holy Wars are hard to win. Never mind the realpolitik background reasons
for the support, bad US foreign policies, etc... now that people believe
in a Holy War, it's going to be pretty difficult to just turn it off, and
Western Democracy is doubly encumbered if we want to advance our program
of moving away from barbarism and towards a humane regieme of law, justice,
compassion, freedom, and, someday, peace...
I hope someone figures out a good solution (I'm trying to, but even if I
did, who'd listen?), because so far ALL the options look pretty bad...
-- S
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Fri Oct 12 2001 - 14:40:49 MDT