Irony
Osama Bin Ladin is a fan of and is supported by an organization, the Taliban, that wants to eliminate Western technology like TVs and radios from life, but he insists on making us listen to him yap by continuing to put messages on TV and radio.
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Sort of like vegitarians wearing leather coats and shoes.
Unless they are vegetarians for health reasons and not b/c they’re afraid to hurt animals.
Well, yeah but that totally works against my point so I will blindly look the other way.
Sort of off-topic, but I think that one of the keys to success over in that particular part of the world right now (say, along the Afghanistan/Pakistan border) is going to be exactly what was done in Iraq (though it will be immeasurably more difficult in Afghanistan/Pakistan): separate the local populace and power groups from Al Qaeda. We may not be able to get Pakistani governmental support to go into those mountains and rout out Al Qaeda completely, but I think it IS possible to start dealing with the Taliban as a native authority/power bloc, while simultaneously separating them in the eyes of the locals from Al Qaeda, many of whom are foreign anyway – Saudi, Yemeni, Sudanese, etc. Drive a wedge between them, and – without letting the Taliban off the hook for state-sponsored offenses they commit, such as their views and policies towards women – make it clear that, unless they materially support/assist Al Qaeda, we regard them as separate entities.
In Iraq, this was easy, because the majority of the country was Shi’a, and after the initial incursion of Al Qaeda into Iraq following the US invasion, their natural alignment was with the Sunni, and they wound up alienating even them…so things like the “Sunni Awakening” was able to take hold in places like Al-Anbar, along with our concurrent bribing of Sunni forces not to attack American troops. That natural mix of ethnic and religious percentages isn’t nearly so favorable in the Waziristan area….but I think it’s one of the keys to a realistic way forward, starting from Kabul and spreading out. The locals will be there long after we’re gone. They’re still there now that the Soviets have been gone for years….how many of ‘em do you suppose would feel warm and fuzzy about voting communist? I’d wager very few. And that’s the point: if we make the mistake of making ourselves LESS attractive to the local population than foreign-born-and-led extremist militants, we’ll never achieve our objectives in that area, because the population will hinder, not help us. It’s the ol’ “hearts and minds” bit: we have to make ourselves MORE attractive/reasonable an option as an ally for the locals than Al Qaeda does….and then the pieces will start to fall into place.