Being there ruins our neutrality. Makes us a target. I like that neutrality, it has kept us safe for 196 years. I think it's unfortunate that four are dead, but I have little empathy for trained soldiers who volunteer to join a foreign invasion force and end up dead because of it. Their death is a consequence of their own choice. What I do have is the greatest of empathy for civilians who had no choice.
Besides that, a military force is a dumb instrument, expensive and inefficient. The money spent on combat vehicles and helicopters would be better spent on expanding our other projects in the area, like schools for young girls. Unlike the military, knowledge will stay in the country.
Come on seriously? That has to be one of the most ridiculous things I have ever seen written. Right up there with Level's claim that Obama wouldn't retaliate after another 9/11 style attack on the US. Both of you are just on a roll these past few days with incredibly poorly thought out statements.
We can't spend more money on schools for young girls till the
people who will burn those young girls' faces with acid are driven out.
Warning that link goes to a CNN News story and right at the top of the page is a picture of a girl who was burned by acid. Its not the worst thing I have ever seen but I am sure it will really bother someone and it did bother me.
The last two links do not have pictures but all the rest do and the third one has a video. You have been warned.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/27713077/
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,451941,00.html
http://sweetness-light.com/archive/afghan-school-girls-attacked-with-acid
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/w...for-spraying-acid-in-girls-faces-1035177.html
http://www.wunrn.com/news/2008/11_08/11_10_08/111008_afghanistan.htm
Without adequate security you can't have schools to teach anyone anything because the Taliban and their allies don't want people learning. They don't have any problem blowing up schools or attacking pre-teen or teenage girls to stop people form learning either.
This reminds me of a discussion I had in an Asian politics class back about 9 or 10 years ago. We were talking about how to encourage development in the poor rural parts of South Asia and the Pacific.
You got all these 18-20 year old kids in there who have never done anything remotely like that kind of work and are talking about getting kids computers to educate them, reforming gov't to encourage more participation, plus lots of other big grandiose ideas that in reality aren't going to work in the areas we were talking about.
Then you have myself who also had never been to that part of the world or worked in areas just like that but I had done volunteer work in the poor rural and urban Southern US. A guy from the Corps who was in his late 20s who had been an enlisted guy before going for his officer training and had parachuted in to places in central America just like south Asia. Lastly you got a buddy of my roommates who is an engineer and back packed across Indonesia where he got kidnapped by some terrorists while on a bus. They made the bus take them to another part of the country adding three days to the trip.
We are just looking at each other and at about the same time all say your ideas will not work until you have better transportation/infrastructure and security in the area. Getting education going is a noble goal and so is gov't reform, so is protecting the environment from deforestation and other damage but none of that will get off the ground if people can't travel and are being killed or kidnapped.
You have to do at least two things at the same time to get a place like that off the ground. You have to improve security and you have to improve infrastructure which includes transportation of goods and materials and depending on the area power, water and sewage. Depending on the level of security and level of development in the area you can either concentrate more on security or concentrate more on infrastructure but you do have to do both. Once both of those items are being worked on and showing improvements then you can start to tackle education and other economic development with more vigor. You could be laying the ground work for education and econ development while trying to secure the area and improving transportation but you won't be able to get much done till an area is secure and people can travel more easily and safely.
If a person can travel more easily, quickly and safely in most weather conditions between point A and B then you can have better commerce and better education. That process takes a lot of time and man power though. Building roads and bridges in those areas can take years. Getting peace keepers in the area to start security and provide protection for the people building the roads plus other infrastructure is expensive and dangerous. Getting local people trained to handle their own security takes time and is also expensive. Real development for truly undeveloped areas is a long process and is expensive.
Airdropping in a bunch of eco powered laptops, building an earthen dam or throwing together a couple of schools, easier/cheaper to secure one or two locations to build then to secure a whole road network, is relatively quick and inexpensive by comparison. All of that work is for naught though if a dozen extremists come in six months later blow up the
dam,
blow up the schools and then
kill or scare off most of the students and teachers.
http://forums.aspfree.com/science-n...ted-for-plot-to-blow-up-afghan-dam-78879.html
http://helmandblog.blogspot.com/2010/01/dam-mission-troops-gaining-upper-hand.html
http://www.rasoulnews.com/news/Details.asp?index=9459
Harassment of women comes against the backdrop of a general deterioration of law and order in Kandahar, a city of nearly a half million people.
The aim of the upcoming operation by NATO and Afghan troops is to clear Kandahar of Taliban fighters, who threaten and intimidate those who do not follow their strict interpretation of Islam, and to bolster the local police force, which appears incapable of stopping petty crime that is rampant in the city.
Added by myself: So if we can improve the security in this area using, soldiers, gunships combat vehicles then people can start to go back to school and we can get the local police force in better shape to handle problems too. You have to have at least some security first before that can happen.
In the best of times, lives of women in conservative Afghanistan are far more restricted than in the West, especially in rural areas where a woman's place is in the home and beneath the all-encompassing burqa. Since the fall of the Taliban regime in 2001, however, women in urban areas like Kabul, Mazar-i-Sharif and Jalalabad have more choices ? with some in parliament, government and business.
Even in Kandahar, the major city of the ultraconservative south, women say restrictions eased in the first years after the Taliban were gone. But as the Islamist movement began to rebound in 2003, pressure on women to adhere to strict Islamist and Afghan traditions increased ? with little protection from the ineffectual and corrupt Afghan police.
Hmhh 2003 yeah what happened in 2003? Oh yeah right we invaded Iraq and started ignoring Afghanistan so that the Taliban could come back and fuck everything up. Well Iraq was really responsible for 9/11 anyway so that is ok. 
Ehsan told of one student whose family was warned by a shopkeeper to keep their daughters indoors and to let them leave only if they are wearing a burqa.
"The shopkeeper knocked on her parents' door and said: 'If you let her go out with her face showing and something happens to her, you have been warned and it will be her own fault,'" recalled Ehsan. "Why is it that every time it is the girls and the women who are targeted in our society?"
In summary you need security and transportation/infrastructure at the same time with emphasis on which component depending on the situation on the ground before you can start educating people in mass. Economic development will follow after those three things are in progress.
"This situation is bad because we have corruption in our government, and teachers don't get paid enough. The police need more salary so they aren't corrupt. But we still say they are better than the Taliban," she said. "I am here. It is dangerous but I am here and I am getting an education. I couldn't before. The Taliban wanted women only to stay inside their home and get married."
But Sikanderi is not convinced she can ever thrive as an educated woman in Afghanistan.
"Maybe though I will go to a foreign country when I get my education if it is still not secure here," she said.
