Jack" wrote in message
...
in article , Matt at
wrote on 2003/10/29 20:09:

I'm sure the vast areas of Afghanistan that are still under the control
of
the same violent warlords they were ten years ago would love a few of
those
shirts. They could, like, give them to their kids.

Your point is what -- that we haven't remade Afghanistan into a modern
Western industrialized and democratic nation, with liberty and justice for
all, in a matter of months?

Ain't gonna happen on this planet, Matt. We are continuing to root out
those
who presented the greatest threat to the US and to the people of
Afghanistan. At some point, inevitably, the Afghan people will be left to
pull themselves up by their own bootstraps. Of course, they won't be that
much different ten years from now than they have ever been, probably, but
they will be better off than if we hadn't done what we are doing. And so
will we.

If you really want to remake the world be prepared to reinstitute the
draft
and double your taxes. Otherwise just be content with occasionally putting
a
finger in the dike, while the fingers of your other hand are crossed
behind
your back.

Jack

My point was that America has, overall, decreased the quality of life of the
average Afghani. The Red Cross, the UN and MSF have all noted that the
quality of life has dropped outside Kabul and Khandahar since the fall of
the Taliban. Poppy farming is up 200% and, whatever you might decide, 90% of
the Heroin coming into Europe and the US is from this region. Vital
international aid has been slow to appear, with the US so far providing less
than 10% of what they promised during the invasion. *Iran* has given more
money to rebuild Afghanistan than the US.

You got the Taliban out of the areas around Kabul and Khandahar. Great.
People in the city are now free to shave and take photographs. It's a
positive thing. Outside Kabul and Khandahar, the people are free to starve
to death because we bombed the food distribution system to pieces and never
replaced it.

The UK might have been complicit in the 'invasion', but at least we've
headed up the international assistance force that is starting to rebuild
Kabul. The US forces haven't done anything other than sit in their heavily
fortified compound, from which they occasionally shoot up the countryside
and drag off anyone who they think has too nice a truck to be a
non-terrorist to Guantanamo Bay, assuming they don't kill them in custody
first. (And that's not rabid loony liberal lies, two Afghani taxi drivers
died in US custody. The cause of death that the US Army Medical Examiners
wrote on the death certificates was 'Homocide'. There was no investigation
into this, and the medical examiners were quietly transferred out.)

The interim administration in Kabul is fighting desperately to unite the
areas of the country still controlled by the warlords, but they are being
hindered by US giving massive bribes of cash and weapons these groups in
their desperation to find Al Qaeda.

And come on, you still haven't caught Osama Bin Laden.

I don't hate America, I don't think Saddam Hussein or the Taliban should
have been left in power, but the 'Liberation of Afghanistan' is a ****ing
fairy tale.