I know that nobody bothers to read what I write when it comes to news and politics
I beg to differ. I may not always have anything constructive to add, but that does not mean that I do not read. :)
For myself I have an attitude (4) Which is that for change to happen in Afghanistan it must come from within. This is a country that has chewed up and spat out invaders for centuries, and their social order (and disorder) is deeply engrained. For positive change to happen the will has to be there amongst the people themselves, and the ability to break the power of the warlords. I do not know how this is to be achieved, since any help from the outside is outsider imposition, and therefore not welcome.
I would say that's my attitude at well, that this whole surge is just an exercise to try to settle things down enough that we can get out while American patience still holds.
I agree with your attitude, but there does seem to be a caveat. I think that Afghanistan has a chance of changing internally if they were confident that the US could protect them for years or decades. If they could be honestly assured that any attempts at a progressive state would be actively defended, they might be encouraged, but the US cannot make such a commitment with a democracy, and its not in our interests to stay so indefinitely anyway. Anyway, neither party really wants that; the first time the fledgling Afghan democracy supported US enemies, the Republicans would have us out of there so fast we would leave tread marks.
Medieval to ModernsilverjackalDecember 16 2009, 15:00:16 UTC
Xenophobia, black and white thinking (us/them, other binaries), and back-to-front reasoning have their basis in language and languages either stall or evolve. There is an "intellectual battlespace" in the Islamic Small Wars, which are all forms of civil war and highly confused in terms of who believes what and who does what for what reason. The character of transformation in conflict--the pattern and meaning and dismissal of conquest and surrender--has changed as conflict intensity has fallen, and modern strategies, which are cumbersome and "long haul" reflect that.
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I beg to differ. I may not always have anything constructive to add, but that does not mean that I do not read. :)
For myself I have an attitude (4) Which is that for change to happen in Afghanistan it must come from within. This is a country that has chewed up and spat out invaders for centuries, and their social order (and disorder) is deeply engrained. For positive change to happen the will has to be there amongst the people themselves, and the ability to break the power of the warlords. I do not know how this is to be achieved, since any help from the outside is outsider imposition, and therefore not welcome.
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I agree with your attitude, but there does seem to be a caveat. I think that Afghanistan has a chance of changing internally if they were confident that the US could protect them for years or decades. If they could be honestly assured that any attempts at a progressive state would be actively defended, they might be encouraged, but the US cannot make such a commitment with a democracy, and its not in our interests to stay so indefinitely anyway. Anyway, neither party really wants that; the first time the fledgling Afghan democracy supported US enemies, the Republicans would have us out of there so fast we would leave tread marks.
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