Simon:

Thanks for the story. I went to the L.A. Times site and added the link to an ongoing page on the "war on terrorism" topic (link below).

I feel we must respond to terrorism, AND that the Afghan people must not bear the brunt of our military actions. The Taliban has recently seized all the U.N. food aid that was targeted for Afghan refugees (link at the site). This is how they take care of their people.

I spent two years in Iran with the Peace Corps. Afghanistan was where we went when we started thinking Iran was too backward. There is a very different mind set at work there (even compared to Iran) and not understanding the cultural context of your enemy can be a very expensive mistake.

Right now the U.S. has the sympathy and understanding of much of the world. Many of the Islamic countries are also looking over the edge and saying "we don't want to go there". They now understand where unrestrained terrorism will take them.

We have a short period of time in which we may be able to isolate the terrorist cells and organizations from many of their support networks. But this can happen only if we can also keep from killing the innocents. It is far from clear that such a thing is possible. If not, then we are only going to wind the clock tighter and produce more of the people we are trying to stop.


America at the Abyss