The Invasion of Afghanistan

[Astrad]

Quite a number of people say they don't support the Iraq war but do support the 2001 invasion of Afghanistan. Many also feel that though Iraq was obviously a debacle, Afghanistan is fairly successful: the Taliban were wiped out, Al Qaeda camps were destroyed, Bin Laden and his minions were forced to flee. But I can't help but believe that underlying this view is a not so subtle form of racism. Racism isn't the most accurate term for it because the feeling that killing populations in far away places is somehow less troubling than, say, killing people here at home is so pervasive as to be almost universal.

To illustrate I cite this analogy. Imagine a nasty criminal gang was operating in a swath of Indianapolis. Let's call them the Beehive. They espoused a hateful, pro-Aryan ideology. Some of the citizens who lived in the Beehive's territory supported the gang, others hated it for its violent ways. The leader of the Beehive espoused terrorist tactics to turn more of the country to his Aryan ideology and had gone so far as to conduct attacks on two US cities where many citizens were killed. Of course Americans were outraged. The government was outraged. So the largest police operation in US history was organized to take out the Beehive. Massive SWAT teams were assembled and to assure success the police even joined up with a nasty rival gang in the area to help them. These forces moved into Indianapolis and conducted a violent assault that did manage to destroy many of the Beehive. Unfortunately due to the complexities of fighting in a dense urban area hundreds of innocent citizens were killed as well. No one knows how many of the Beehive got away but many did. And the leader of the Beehive escaped and was rumoured to now be in Chicago or maybe Minneapolis. Also the nasty rival gang now was largely in control of what remained of the Beehive's former territory. Now imagine the response to such a scenario. A few hundred American citizens killed, the leader still at large and still espousing attacks. Would this be considered a success? The truth is this wouldn't even be allowed to happen. (Although I suppose Waco has vague similarities.)

So for what reason other than the fact that it's far away and the people are 'foreign' would one support the invasion of Afghanistan and yet be troubled by such actions on US soil?

[HysteryDiagnosis]

1. We didn't need them any longer to kill Russians. They are

disposable.

[pretzel4gore]

2. the whole thing was a sham....

and the only ones duped were US! That's what is so piss offing about recent history-the audience for the mostly US made chaos is the big fat domestic pig, and the story is changed whenever it's convenient to keep the big fat pig chewing its cud. We are as corrupt a culture as has ever existed (in the main)

[One Honest Guy]

3. That's a pretty spot-on analogy.