Re: Why I Am Going to Afghanistan

abouloutian — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 09:38:58 -0000

I did not finish my prior comments. Somehow it was sent off before I finished.

In any event, attacking and bombing Afghanistan will become a worse affair than Iraq.
The reasons for changing our strategies include:
* Bombing the outlying villages doew nothing more than enrage the people which in turn produces recruits for the Taliban military effort and Al Qaesa. We become their best recruiters. They love it. There are better methods.

* The Taliban and Al Qaeda are different. The Taliban I believe want to be left alone to live their lives their way. They have no international aims, whereas Al Qaeda has it seems a larger plan. Regardless, we employ behavior modification strategies to produce productive change.

* Behavior modification - There are other modern day methods of producing useful change. For example, an individual is in Afghanistan helping farmers grow Pomagranites rather than Opium. Another, I believe Craig Mortenson, a mountain climber, has been successfully builing little schools for villages in the tribal areas with the single requirment that they include girls. And the people are cooperating. There are other similar methods we can apply to parts of Afghanistan and Pakistan. It's a matter of thinking through ways to help them in a manner that causes them to want to change and cooperate. Another idea would be to transfer some of our military into the Peace Corps and have the Peace Corps act as an arm to Habitat for Humanity in building modest homes and the like. These kinds of strategies will unquestionably produce change in behaviour and their view toward us. This will not necessarily change their belief systems but what matters is that we find ways to produce working relationships rather than enemies. There are many similar ideas that can be generated by comining our intelligence with some bright minds and brain storming. Ara Bouloutian

Re: Why I Am Going to Afghanistan

abouloutian — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 09:25:55 -0000

Attacking Afghanistan is very similar to the attack on Iraq. If we continue it could easily be far worse than Iraq. The reasons for changing our approach to Afghanistan incllude these:
* By continuing to bomb the outlying areas, the taliban villages, we are simply creating more rage against us, which will produce more recruits for the Taliban and Al Qaeda. Indirectly we are the recruiters for finding talent for the Taliban and Al Qaeda.

* The Taliban is very different from Al Qaeda. They are not interested in any kind of world movement. They only want to be left alone to their lives their way. We may not like their social inclinations but we don't need to murder them to produce change. There are other ways.

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Re: Why I Am Going to Afghanistan

Re: Why I Am Going to Afghanistan