9 October 2001 - Goals of attacks on Afghanistan

Having heard the rhetoric of Blair and Bush I find the absence of clear achievable and meaningful military goals troubling. Blair said that his aim was to "take action against the Taliban". What does that mean? Does he want to replace them as the rulers of Afghanistan or not? What is the future of Afghanistan that is being fought for? From what I have heard its future is to be a country with more chaos, more bloodshed , less people and less Taliban. If these attacks are going to achieve something other than just the richest and most powerful people in the world hitting the weakest and poorest people then come on Blair and Bush let us know. 

Will you put in place the kind of leader you normally put in place in the Muslim world? You know the type,  oppressive and corrupt dictators and monarchs, or will you actually allow the people of the region to decide for themselves even if you can't control the result? I hear talk about a multi-ethnic coalition. This is a red herring. The Northern Alliance is not fighting the Taliban because the Taliban isn't multi-ethnic enough but because the Russians and Iranians are paying them to fight a proxy war. 

What is needed in Afghanistan is a strong and demonstrably legitimate independent government and this will not happen by bringing yet another proxy war to this most war ravaged of countries. Unfortunately there is a huge vested interest in keeping the government of Afghanistan weak. It is the drugs trade. If the goals of the current "war on terrorism" achieve nothing but weakening the Afghan government or replace it with an even weaker one, the result will be more strife for the people of Afghanistan, more drugs trade and  more terrorism.