My own view immediately after September 11 was that we should turn Afghanistan into a parking lot. But Bush told us these were actually freedom-loving folks who yearned to be westerners.
I return to my original view.
Nuke them from orbit....
“But Bush told us these were actually freedom-loving folks who yearned to be westerners.”
Rush Limbaugh said the same thing. I believed both of them until I did a tour in Afghanistan in 2007.
There is no innate yearning to be free in most people. Our own desire for it in the 1700s was due to a combination of a long Christian heritage combined with a lot of land that could be settled. Now that we have neither, our freedom is rapidly sliding away with the approval of the majority of the population. The American colonists would have taken up arms to defend their right not to rent a room in their house to a couple of practicing homosexuals...
The normal desire of man is for security, not freedom. When societal order doesn’t arise from internal values, it will be imposed from the outside by the strong.