low_delta

I'm still wondering what the point of attacking the Taliban is. We decided not to find bin Laden on our own, and make the Taliban turn him over. We decided to demonstrate to the rest of the world that we would not let any governmet shelter terrorists. Sounds fine so far. But what do we do? In practice this means that we go in and pound on them. So let's say that this is fine (humor me). Let's say that the government forces deserve pulverization, and civilian casualties are kept to a minumum. What then? We just go in and beat the shit out of them? Then we go home satisfied? What about that country? Do we just leave them in ruins and let them try to rebuild? Just leave them to struggle, as an object lesson to other nations? So who rebuilds? The government we just attacked? A bunch of other people who have the power to do anything? In this case, there is a ready force of rebels standing by. But do we put them in power? It sounds like our government doesn't want to do this. Because, first of all, we don't trust them very much either. Second, we might finally be learning our lesson about helping get evil dictators into power. So we just take out the Taliban and let the Alliance do what they will. And claim we don't have any responsibility for putting them in power.

Which brings us back to the beginning. Are we going to get Osama bin Laden?

"Alarmed by the swift capture of Kabul by opposition leaders whom it does not want in charge, the United Nations was already sending representatives to the country in an urgent effort to cobble together a broad-based government acceptable to all factions."

"But Western journalists and witnesses in Kabul reported that the capital was clearly under the opposition’s control and had already been divided between two alliance factions. Fighters loyal to pre-Taliban President Burhanuddin Rabbani had apparently taken the downtown area, while the Shiite Muslim group Hezb-i-Wahdat had taken the southwest, they said."