You know, I have to admit, I've wondered what exactly all the ordnance IS supposed to accomplish. Aside from toppling the Taliban, which would be a good thing in and of itself if there were something to replace them with that wasn't at least equally as bad. (There IS a reason that the Afghans initially supported the Taliban, after all; the Northern Alliance are spectacularly vile people. And the enthusiasm for the loya jurga headed by the former Shah of Afghanistan is notably lacking.)
That said, it does look like there is no good solution.
We can't submit our grievance to the World Court; we refuse to recognize its jurisdiction.
We couldn't just do nothing; that would only encourage more and worse attacks.
However ... bombing Afghanistan seems like an almost perfect example of a lose-lose situation; it's a situation with no good outcome. (And bombing Afghanistan and then dropping flyers that say, "We're not really bombing you! We don't hate Afghans!" is just idiocy. I'm sorry; someone drops a bomb or 6000 on my city, I'm likely to take it as a sign that you're not real happy with me, you know? It will not predispose me to thinking that you're nice people.)
Copyright © 2001, Iain Jackson, after-words.org
[Archives: 2001 and after]
Archives before February 5, 2001
Search entries:
12/19/2001: vive la france
12/19/2001: princess, redux
12/19/2001: yemen and rumsfeld
12/18/2001: you're NOT in the army now
12/18/2001: interesting donation
12/18/2001: shame on winn dixie, indeed
12/18/2001: saudi princess
12/17/2001: new resolve
12/17/2001: a victim of the attack ... yeah, right
12/17/2001: polluters ho!