Hey, GUEST, I would have fled Afghanistan myself, years ago, if I were there and had the means to...be assured. On the other hand, when you've grown up in a little village in the mountains and it's the only reality you've ever known, then it may not seem like such an obvious choice. A lot of people tend to hunker in and just try to survive in such a situation.

I fear that if the Taliban fall, another regime will shortly be in place that will be equally bad...the Northern Alliance do not have a good past record. On the other hand, almost anything might be an improvement, I suppose. That's assuming the Taliban are decisively defeated, which may or may not happen. They may just hang on longer than anyone thinks. We'll see.

Don't forget that the utterly insane Kymer Rouge were backed by money and arms from the CIA and China! (Talk about strange bedfellows) Vietnam finally kicked them out of Cambodia, due to chronic border skirmishes, among other things.

Vietnam oughta get a Nobel prize on behalf of a grateful humanity for that particular effort, despite their lousy human rights record within their own borders during the same period...they were a vast improvement over Pol Pot.

One other thing to remember...everyone on either side of this dispute (or any other) looks upon the other guys as "thugs refusing to cooperate" or to listen to reason. That's how many people in the Islamic countries see Israelis and Americans...as arrogant thugs with high-tech weapons.

If any one of you (including me) had been born in a different family, in a different country, then it is very likely that our views would be radically different. This doesn't mean we are born evil in nature, it means we have only a partial view of reality. One person's thug is another person's hero. One person's terrorist is another person's martyr.

To know this is to experience compassion, and to work for peace, not further bloodshed.

Peace can only be achieved through greater equality, on all levels of life, not through the temporary victory of one side over the other.

Equality. That is something worth working toward, and who can say that it is unjust to do so.

I don't want victory, I want equality. When I walk among equals, I have no reason for fear. When I walk among beaten enemies, I fear the knife in my back at any moment.

- LH