GWB's War on Terror: A Futile Fight?

[Informal Logic]

I think you are confusing the Taliban with Al Qaeda, and I never claimed that terrorists in general are on the edge of extinciton. My comment was specific: it was about the Taliban only.

I did clump the Taliban into a generality of terrorism. The Taliban is a radical religious militia like Al Qaeda, but there is probably more parallelism to the insurgents in Iraq. Still, I disagree that any of these groups are on the verge of extinction, including the Taliban.

By ROBERT BURNS, AP Military Writer
Sun May 22, 7:30 AM ET

WASHINGTON - American commanders say the Taliban is a viable resistance force in Afghanistan even three years after the Islamic radicals fell, but the U.S. military's fight to undermine their influence and bring stability is showing signs of progress.

The assessment follows a stretch in which U.S. troops in Afghanistan have been killed at a higher rate than those in Iraq, where there are about eight times as many American soldiers and where the situation is widely perceived as more dangerous.

George Joulwan, a retired four-star Army general and former NATO commander in Europe, said Friday that ultimate success will be determined by economic and political rebuilding, hunting down Osama bin Laden and other terrorist leaders on the Afghan-Pakistan border, and stamping out narcotrafficking in Afghanistan.

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20050522/ap_on_re_as/us_afghanistan_outlook_3

What's your point? Are you expecting the transition to be instantaneous? "Puppet" or not, its still a huge step in the right direction. See: Germany and Japan for similar examples of US "puppet" regimes. Is that meant to be a loaded question? Significant progress has been made. Significant work is left to be done. Both should be self-evident.

No I do not expect an instantaneous transition (actually a criticism by Sharansky of Bush's expectations). However, democracy must be accomplished by the people of a country, not by a lengthy, police state occupation.

What are you implying? A claim regarding something that hasn't happened yet is a prediction. People make predictions all the time - why can't I?

I do not personally have an issue with this. You are the one who has an issue with members making unsubstantiated claims.

In any case, the main point of the prediciton is to highlight the fallacy of the position you (and others) are presenting: You are implying that since Afghanistan (and Iraq) isn't a perfect, peacful, prosperous democracy right now that that indicates a failure on the part of the Bush administration. That's just absurd.

Assuming a third world country will substitute wheat for opium ('terms of trade') is a leap, but certainly to think their culture will allow women equality is an even greater leap.

Heh - have a look at the past 50 years of Euro-American relations and re-evaluate that premise. The peace and prosperity of the western world in the past 50 years is utterly unprecidented in all of human history. The reason for that is democracy/capitalism.

In fact, here is a simple challenge: can you name for me a time when any two modern (US style) democracies were at war with each other?

So that we will not waste time on this topic, here is a reference: "Democracies Do Not Make War on One Another...or Do They?" http://users.rcn.com/mwhite28/demowar.htm