Re: Bush budget has 0 dollars for Afghanistan

From: Kai M. Becker (kmb@kai-m-becker.de)
Date: Mon Feb 17 2003 - 08:21:46 MST

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    Russell Blackford schrieb:
    > We seem to have dropped the ball in Afghanistan, where was
    > certainly necessary to get rid of the Taliban.

    Unfortunately, the Taliban are not yet beaten. Their chief, Mullah Omar,
    has just issued another call for a djihad against the USA and the new
    government in Afghanistan. Several intelligence agencies have reported
    that the Taliban and other paramilitary groups are reorganizing their
    forces. Remember the attack two weeks ago?

    There seems to be a rising risk for another civil war, with ISAF in the
    middle... The real war in Afghanistan, the form of war that the russians
    couldn't win, has not yet begun.

    > This is *one* area where we need some hardnosed policy debate (one of
    > many). I wish the peace marchers would devote their energies to this
    > sort of issue.

    That's one of the main arguments in the discussions here, but not many
    pro-war shouters seem to have listend: A war against Iraq now will mess
    up the whole region and drive thousands of new recruits into the arms of
    al-quaeda and the other muslim extremists groups. That's why we need
    more time to present real evidence, to form a coalition, keep all
    parties involved in line, etc. That's why even the majority of the
    Iraqi opposition in exile is against a war at this time.

    It would/will take years to bring stability into Iraq, even if not all
    odds would be against such a goal. The organized Iraqi military - or
    whatever is left of it - is not real threat. But when Saddam and his
    murderous regime will be bombed away, Iraq will become prey to Iran, the
    Kurds, Turkey, Saudi-Arabia, Kuwait and dozens of groups of religious or
    political fanatics. This mess can not be solved with high-tech military
    alone.

    And there's a very good chance that if there are really hidden WMDs,
    that these groups will gain access to them long before the US troops
    will even know where they are. I've said it two weeks ago: Instead of
    one Saddam, this war will breed some dozen potential bin-Ladins and one
    of them might succeed in another 9-11 like attack. But well, this will
    at least give US "Homeland Security" some new arguments to further trade
    freedom for pretended safety and burn some more borrowed billions for
    non-productive, non-progressive things.

        Kai



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