Of course there was a governemnt, T... Even in what we call "failed states" there is a governemnt... Okay, maybe not a governemnt of yer likin' or your European thinkin' but there are governements... Sometimes, like in Somalia, it's warlords who control things but make no mistake about it, it is a government... I think this is important for people with European menatl limitations to absorb because Afganistan (and Somolia) are not only the west's pests but also the west's opportunities... What we have is an ethnocentric midset that prohibits us from solving conflicts with folks who, ahhhh, don't view the world as we view it...

This is our failing more than the Taliban or the Somolian tribal warlords... They only know what they know but we have, or should have, the upper hand in that if we can bridge our gaps between our mindsets and theirs then we can go forward...

Think about it this way, T...

In the US we have some very right winged ignorant people who think iot is pertfectly okay to yell "Hang him" at a Sarah Palin rally in regards to Barak Obama... Now the more enlightened has the benefit of greater experiences and knowledges to draw fromn... The redneck who has just yelled "Hang him" doesn't... He has come about as far as he is going to come in terms of understanding the world or critical thinking... He is reacting... Think "reactionary" here... The Taliban is not all that different from that redneck... Now we can think with our righteuosness that the Taliban and that redneck should be able to see "our" side... Problem is that they aren't wired to see "our" side... So that leaves "our" side, if it is indeed more enlightened and intellegent, to do the heavy lifting... Everyone understands vilence... It is as base a behavior as humans can stoop... So when we allow ourselves to be drawn into a military response to conflicts with unenlightened people what we are, in essence, doing is saying "Screw it, we give up on reason so lets fight it out..."

That is the problem with this war in Afganistan... Yeah, we can maybe make things very uncomfortable for the Taliban... We can outfight them... We can out kill them but in the end they will do what Ho Chi Mihn taught: "He who fights and runs away, lives to fight another day..." Yes, the Taliban, though not enlightened or educated or Europeanized, will blend right back into the general population if things are going bad, wait out the storm and then it will be business as usual for them...

Now I agree that humanitarian aid is the way to beat them but the problem is that this war has created so much bad kharma that changes course will be be seen as just another tactic and not seen as offered in the interest of humanism... That is why it won't work... Especially with the Taliban in hiding/dormancy...

No, the Afgan War is lost... It was lost on Day One... It was flawed in ethnocentricity... It's now too late for US to say to the Afgans "We care for you as people"...

Maybe next time we want to steal someone's stuff we come in with the candy bars, not bullets...

Too late here...

B~