Marcus_Ozius wrote:
I don't know that I can agree that the adoption of fundamentalist Islam was a way of trying to throw out foreign intervention. Wasn't U.S. aid against the Soviets in favor of the fundamentalism muslims what brought them to power in the first place? Beyond that, aren't Iran and Pakistan major players within the Taliban? I think that the Iran coup isn't particularly applicable to the Afghanistan mess.
As for the culling, I'll grant that they have survived just fine without it assuming that we can define denying women medicine and education, inflicting torturous punishment for slight offenses, and denying basic freedoms as fine. I wholeheartedly agree. The difficulty is that in this day and age a few zealots have the power to do a lot more damage than before. Failed states used as training camps for international terrorism need to be prevented from being a threat.
US aid is what kept the muhjahideen from being annihilated, but they were a broad group of rebels. When aid dried up after the Soviets left, the different groups fought each other out and the fundamentalists came out on top. I would argue that fundamentalism is certainly a reaction to foreign intervention. al-Qaeda's main beef was the presence of US soldiers guarding Saudi Arabia from Saddam Hussein during the 90's.
Arguing that failed states are breeding grounds for terrorism is circular logic considering it was we who made them failed states in the first place. Implying Afghanistan is especially backward or vicious is also off the mark considering how many developing and developed nations are on human rights watch lists for exactly the same breaches.
The main problem at the moment is that we're trying to force Afghanistan along our timetable. It took most Western nations, including the United States, nearly a century to move past bloody internal strife and corruption yet we expect these "more backward" lands to do so in decade or less which is hopelessly naive.
