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Re: Yes it's off topic but who cares right now.

  • From: Eric A. Hall
  • Date: Fri Sep 14 00:34:21 2001

> From: "Los, Ralph" <[email protected]>

> if you gave me an unlimited supply of rockets, and a lot of killing power,
> I'd point it at Afganistan and say....'Kill 'em all, let God sort 'em out

Let me state a couple of things. First of all, a direct attack on DC couldn't
be any less a declaration of war. We must respond. We must also respond for NY
lest it happen again. There is no question in my mind that we will soon be at
war and I am supportive of that effort as the only viable option for keeping
my family alive and safe.

BUT, keep in mind that the majority of the people in Afghanistan are caught
between armed factions in an internal conflict. They are simple farmers,
peasents at best, suffering under the oppression of a fundamentalist regime on
the left and warlords on the right. "Kill them all and let $DEITY sort them
out" is the wrong thing to do, as it will bite us in the butt later.

What we *should* do is crush the warlords who would give us the longest term
grief in any occupation, decimate the leadership, and then bring in the Corp
of Engineers and the Peace Corps to help the peasentry build a functional
democracy for themselves. A modernized version of the Marshall Plan is about
the only thing we haven't tried, and it would be much more rewarding in the
long-term than killing them all.

Rinse and repeat.