Quote from alfonso:
Just how "new" is Afghanistan? It's still the same old war lords roaming the countryside. Many former Taliban included. The biggest difference is Afghanistan contains a lot less humans than it did 2 years ago.
Now where do you get ideas like this? Among other things, you've just eliminated all of the refugees and exiles who've returned to Afghanistan, and you seem to be implying that you believe the Taliban-Al Qaeda terror regime offered any hope to Afghanistan, whose oppressed population was on the verge of starvation in the millions when the US intervened.
You appear to be another one of those individuals who is incapable of accepting facts that do not square with your prejudices.
Even though Americans uniformly close their eyes to this, the fact is the Afghan regime was a US creation gone awry. Thus once again human beings became a throw away luxury for a US government that has no moral compunction about destroying lives whatsoever.
A massive oversimplification that has the sole virtue of propping up your presumptions - as though the Russians, Iranians, Pakistanis, and Saudis, among others, had no role in what went wrong in Afghanistan. Of course, the US also had a role in creating the situation that eventually, after many steps, led to the Taliban-Al Qaeda, but what would you have had us do after the Soviets left? Intervene directly? Isn't that what you're against America doing in Iraq?
"Democracy" will be Iraq's swan song as a nation, as the rival ethnicities and factions rip it apart. So much for providing "stability" to the region. Tom Friedman -- the Arab Yugoslavia.
Those aren't arguments, those are predictions. Tom Friedman supported this war, by the way, and saw the "Arab Yugoslavia" possibility as a danger, not as a likelihood.
At least that's what a real democracy is most likely to create.
You're an apologist for Saddam Hussein - applying the obnoxiously childish term "yucky" as a description for the crimes against humanity perpetrated by his regime. On another thread, you asked us to consider the possibility that his regime wasn't really so "intolerable." Repeatedly, you've spoken up in admiration of suicide bombers (I say, better for the US Marines to deal with these deluded lunatics than for civilians to have to do it - but that's another issue). Is there any evil in the world you
won't embrace for the sake of attacking on the US?
Now YOU are going to tell us what a "real democracy" is?
On the other hand, and probably more likely, the new leader will just be some US puppet -- Saddam lite -- whose number one mission is to create a secure environment for the oil interests, all the while paying lip service to democracy (with the US spin machine at his disposal) but in reality quelling it.
I see you've finally begun to prepare yourself to survive a coalition victory with all of your immature presumptions, flagrant biases, and sheer lack of respect for the real victims intact.
As a former leftist radical (years ago), I'll say this to you: You may someday grow up, and feel embarrassed about your former opinions.
