Our soldiers are being killed in Afganistan. We are there to defeat the Taliban and, if I understand correctly, to set up some form of democracy. We are told that the government of Hamid Karzai was democratically elected. Oh?
Fast forward. Television footage of the last few days has shown us scenes of a man and a woman being flogged in public. A law has been passed by both houses of parliament that allows, in Shia communities, marital rape and bars a woman from leaving the house without her husband's permission. This law may be rescinded under Western pressure, but nonetheless, what does it tell us? We have here a culture which has endured for countless generations, and we're trying to change it in the space of a few years? Several nations are now wondering out loud whether our democratizing efforts are worth the bloodshed, and whether the effort should be abandoned as hopeless.
As to the insurgents and the Taliban, they seem to be winning, at least for now. Maybe the extra 30,000 Obama troops will make a difference. But the Taliban has been defeated before and they've come back, and I submit that they will continue coming back again and again, like bad weeds. We can defeat an army but not an inbred mindset. These people willingly die for the cause. When those on our side die for a cause, we call them saints and heroes and erect statues.
On another tack, what is this business of "training" the Afghans and the Iraqis to look after themselves? We've been hearing this for years but the training never seems to take hold. There is something condescending in this idea. These people have to be trained? Are they that backward and obtuse? I don't think so, maybe it's the other way around.
It would be all too easy to say the hell with it, let's pull out and leave them to their own devices, but I would favour something close to it.
Fast forward. Television footage of the last few days has shown us scenes of a man and a woman being flogged in public. A law has been passed by both houses of parliament that allows, in Shia communities, marital rape and bars a woman from leaving the house without her husband's permission. This law may be rescinded under Western pressure, but nonetheless, what does it tell us? We have here a culture which has endured for countless generations, and we're trying to change it in the space of a few years? Several nations are now wondering out loud whether our democratizing efforts are worth the bloodshed, and whether the effort should be abandoned as hopeless.
As to the insurgents and the Taliban, they seem to be winning, at least for now. Maybe the extra 30,000 Obama troops will make a difference. But the Taliban has been defeated before and they've come back, and I submit that they will continue coming back again and again, like bad weeds. We can defeat an army but not an inbred mindset. These people willingly die for the cause. When those on our side die for a cause, we call them saints and heroes and erect statues.
On another tack, what is this business of "training" the Afghans and the Iraqis to look after themselves? We've been hearing this for years but the training never seems to take hold. There is something condescending in this idea. These people have to be trained? Are they that backward and obtuse? I don't think so, maybe it's the other way around.
It would be all too easy to say the hell with it, let's pull out and leave them to their own devices, but I would favour something close to it.
posted by puzzled @ 5:06 AM
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