Instead of Dropping Bombs on Afghanistan

Maybe we should consider dropping food instead of bombs to their 1,500,000+ starving people. With time maybe we could win over their hearts. It would be a lot cheaper too.


Of course their vocal minority will scream it's just a propaganda ploy(and they'd be right!),but who'd listen? It's a propaganda ploy the starving would welcome with open arms.

I'm glad to see others are thinking of such ideas. I should be posting something later that has a link to just this sort of idea, fleshed out a bit, as it appeared recently on a newsgroup.


Today on CNN I heard a government official (didn't catch who it was) mention that aid in the form of food might turn out to be one of our most powerful tools in Afghanistan. So apparently there are some in the administration entertaining such thoughts.

Good idea. And since our military is already deployed in that region, we might as well take the opportunity to bomb Iraq, and to wipe out Iran, Yemen, Syria and Libya off the map for good. Not to mention Palestine. It would be a total surprise that they wouldn't be prepared for. Think about it, if we wipe out enough of the Saudi's, Pakistani's, and Egyptian's allies, they will be forced to be nice to us and Israel.

...I was thinking the same thing as I watched Night Line tonight. Why not set up refugee camps and feed all who are hungry. A Win for us, a win for the refugees, a win for the American farmer...

. . . on the Taliban regime is books.

it's better to drop books on tape.

That would surely finish off the Taliban's remaining bankroll, thus crippling their abilty to wage a defense.

Not enough time to go into detail on this subject, but I encourage you all to examine the food aid provided to Somalia and exactly how far their behavior shifted.


They were grateful for the food, but their gratitude stopped at any hint of taking suggestions from outsiders regarding their affairs. They had their ideas on how to settle their difference. Violence and the denial of food to starving opponents were well within the pale. Compromise and good will wasn't.

Maybe we should drop food on the populace and drop bombs on the terrorists and on the Taliban. Seriously.

Dropping loads of Championship Hold'em is too harsh, plus it probably would be in violation of the Geneva Convention.

"Not enough time to go into detail on this subject, but I encourage you all to examine the food aid provided to Somalia and exactly how far their behavior shifted."


Pick a tool or a method of doing just about anything. It's not hard to come up whith an example where it worked, or one where it didn't. At any rate, as far as I know this idea has hardly been tested at all, certainly not enough to say, "It doesn't work." Of course it may not apply well to the current situation.


Note as well, as I suggested elsewhere, that regardless of whether this particular idea could work, the kind of creative brainstorming it shows just might generate and idea that could work.

John,


"Pick a tool or a method of doing just about anything. It's not hard to come up whith an example where it worked, or one where it didn't. At any rate, as far as I know this idea has hardly been tested at all, certainly not enough to say, "It doesn't work." Of course it may not apply well to the current situation."


I full agree with the above. I mention the case in Somalia, not as a rebuttal to this line of thinking, but as an example of where it has been tried. History is a valuable teacher. It could be that the lessons we learned from the failure in Somalia could lead to ideas that make the tactic work better in this case. I should have made that clearer in the post, my bad.


From what I've seen so far, I doubt we would agree on much, but not all of my posts are meant to criticize. Some of them are just trying to get some useful information out there. And part of my reason for reading is to learn myself. I'd bet pretty good money my initial position has moved farther towards, say, Chris Alger than vice versa.


Pat Charlton

"From what I've seen so far, I doubt we would agree on much, but not all of my posts are meant to criticize."


We're probably not as far apart as it seems. I actually have little allegiance to any political ideology. I've just felt the current situation was serious enough to merit a close look at all options. The nonviolent options have received too little play in the press, so I've wanted to promote exploring them a bit.


From you, Chris, and others who know the history and politics much better than I do, I'm learning a lot. But I don't have the knowledge at this point to really "push" any point of view. Certainly I do have some level of bias though. And it may lean a bit to the left. But I generally see merit in many of the ideas of all the major (half way reasonable) political camps.