tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20417751.post7295411682887726758..comments2024-01-22T18:22:29.391-08:00Comments on hedera's corner: Afghanistanhederahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01696592301686568456noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20417751.post-21835190798814806072009-10-19T14:13:09.509-07:002009-10-19T14:13:09.509-07:00The people of Afghanistan know the Taliban far bet...The people of Afghanistan know the Taliban far better than we do via our own news reports. That Kabul shopkeeper ultimately must be willing to fight for his own freedom and/or pay the heavy taxes such a fight requires if he wants our style of freedom.<br /><br />I'm just finishing my own Afghanistan post. I think we should leave all overseas bases, but I do also offer an alternative strategy to the all or nothing choices.Hal Horvathhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10851897967853698214noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20417751.post-11963955824730973692009-10-14T18:10:34.800-07:002009-10-14T18:10:34.800-07:00This is essentially what I said on my blog a few w...This is essentially what I said on my blog a few weeks back. <br /><br />A central recognition takes place in the arc of the life of an empire state, like Britain once was, like Russia once was, like America is now: You reach a state of acknowledgment that there aren't enough resources (materiel, means, bodies, intellectual leverage) in the world to allow any nation to literally "control" vast foreign territories, without collapsing in on itself out of exhaustion (of will, of resource, etc.). <br /><br />After WWII, the United States believed--and with good reason and logic--that it alone had a valid mandate to press its case about the progress of the whole world. It had two major opponents during this period, Russia and China. Our behavior and policies during the entire post-War period were mixed, on balance. We saved millions of people from hunger, and modernized much of the Third World, but we did terrible things as well. Viet-nam and Iraq, and now Afghanistan and Pakistan, are object-lessons in defining the limits of what we can afford to effect in our ideal vision of a possible future. <br /><br />Put simply, we can't afford to build nations in places like Iraq, Afghanistan, Indonesia, Vietnam, Chile, Mexico. In order to accomplish this, we'd have to occupy these countries, literally, as you say, for generations. To make them, as Russia did to its several neighboring states, vassals and slaves to its version of the correct path--and along the way, being exploited to serve the proud possessors, too. Our own people are the priority; this is not being isolationist, or selfish, but realistic. We need schools, and health care, and pensions, and jobs, and a clean environment. Are we really willing to forego all these things just so a people half way around the world, living in rocky villages in dire poverty, can be brought (kicking and screaming) into the 20th Century? <br /><br />We need to get out of Afghanistan. I hate to think of what the women will suffer when we do, but what good can we do if we exhaust ourselves (and our welcome around the world) by subduing their culture for decades? If we starve ourselves to bring about these missionary changes, we'll cease to be the shangri-la which is the example which the rest of the world perceives us to be.Curtis Favillehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06213075853354387634noreply@blogger.com