Charlie Rose

REMant  01/13/2010 02:43 AM Report

Good stuff, but the outposts were surely not put there to protect anyone in the locality. His description of Kabul is the same as one would have made of Saigon, or indeed of many war zones; it is one of the bizarre facts of life in them. And so also the description of the desire of the ppl to be free of corruption and its cause, i.e., us, and this is bound to aid the Taliban in the long run.

I simply do not understand the notion that our becoming friends with the Afghans is going to have any effect on their involvement with the the Taliban. This is not a war for hearts and minds and it was not in Vietnam either. There they were probably friends more often with the NLF because they treated them better, since, needing the population's support, they had no alternative, in stark contrast to the GVN forces we supported, but the NLF had no more in common with the ppl than we, the ARVN, and other GVN entities did. The NLF tried to mobilize them with the idea of overthrowing landlords and owners, particularly foreign, which appealed to some, but as Fitzgerald argued it was a completely foreign idea to the ordinary villager. On the other hand, our notion of free mkt democracy arrived stillborn as well. All the time I was there I felt the Vietnamese had more affection for the French than for us, and they probably still do, because in fact they were more alike, colonialism and all. IMHO the Taliban will not likely be able to keep the ppl in thrall if they do not want to be, regardless of their feeling about the central government, and I think the idea that we are their to protect them is a cover for an endeavor to proselytize, and not only to no useful purpose, but to our detriment. It's what we so often do to others, and our children, because we feel that they must be made dependent on us, which is how we define love. If ppl don't "love" us, they must, therefore, be deprived, and in need of an anti-poverty program. It is the way LBJ thought; read Doris Kearn's book. What's more I think the Afghans are more likely to respect ppl who slap them around when than treat them like women.