The Bombing Continues

I stopped by a local electronics store yesterday to pick up a monitor for my PC. I overheard two of the clerks talking about the war while I was waiting in line. Both of them were concerned that there would be more terrorist attacks in our country. The teenage girl behind the register said: "We should just get out of the Middle East. If we bring all of our troops back home, Osama and the terrorists will leave our country alone."


The guy she was talking to said: "We can't let bin Laden get away with it, but I don't think we should be bombing their country either. I think we should go in with our troops and capture Osama and the other terrorists and put them on trial in an international court of law."


So, what do I think? I think there are no easy answers. We cannot take the isolationist approach and walk away, we have too much at stake in the Middle East. And just marching in and rounding up Osama and his buddies to bring them up in front of the judge wouldn't be an easy task either.


Continued bombing increases the chances of additional "collateral damage" (a nice, clean term for the civilians accidentally killed by the bombs), wich may turn additional sentiment against us by Muslims in other countries: The United States seen as the elitist bully, trying to bomb their enemies into submission at the expense of civilian casualties. Unwilling to risk the lives of their own troops, letting the Northern Alliance do their dirty work for them.


So, if we send in ground troops now, what will they be facing? We've bombed most of the major military targets, should be an easy battle for them, right? Probably not. There are lots of hiding places for Osama's men in the caves and mountains of Afghanistan. The Russians got their asses kicked trying to fight there not too long ago. The people living there have the advantage of knowing the land, and being able to blend in. Something not to be underestimated, as those of you old enough to remember Vietnam will recall.


But we have special forces troops, and they're much better trained than the Russians were. So with the help of the Norther Alliance, theoretically, we should be able to go in and get Osama and his "thugs". It may take a while, and we will most likely lose some of our troops in the process, but such is the price of war.


Then what to we do? Help to set up a new government there? Will the people accept leaders appointed by the old king and the Northern Alliance? What if the majority of the Afghanis want another Taliban type of government? Should we allow it?


The Taliban leaders are harsh, they let their women and children starve for the sake of religious principles, and they routinely execute people for petty crimes. But other countries over there have regimes in place that are equally cruel, and we don't go in and try to change their leadership. Maybe we'd have to just back off at that point, and let them decide for themselves. Muslims point at our Western Civilization's decadence: disease spread by drug abuse and sexual promiscuity promoted by our entertainment industry, children in gangs killing each other with cheap handguns made available by companies only interested in the bottom line, etc. (Yeah, I know our form of "civilization" ain't perfect either, but I'd rather be here than starving in Afghanistan.)


So, what would I do if I could change things in the Middle East? Would I replace all the harsh rulers of Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, etc. with western-style democratic governments, so we could sell them Hollywood, Hamburgers, Coca Cola, and Chevy Blazers? Would that be the right thing to do? (Considering the cultural differences, would that even work?)


I really don't know what the answer is, what the final outcome of the events now unfolding in Afghanistan will be. Only time will tell. I'm just glad I'm not one of the people in office making decisions about our course of action. (It's much easier to sit here on the sidelines writing cynical essays about the problem than it is to be one of the people actually calling the shots over there.)