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I was INCENSED that it took some terrorists from Afghanistan bombing the U.S. to make us step in and do something about the Taliban. They beat their women in the street and stone little girls and forbade them to work or go to school….or beg from those who DID have a means of supporting themselves. The suicide rates were through the roof, and NO ONE was helping them. No one.

My husband is U.S. Marine, and I have a very different perspective on a lot of what we’re doing in the Middle East than the most vocal members of this site.

Now that we are positioned where we are…the action in Afghanistan and the pressure there is being stepped up. There is a huge shift going on in focus.

There are a lot of political reasons that we’re not involved with some of the world’s situations. The primary one in most cases is that we have not been invited to be there…by anyone. Iraq and Afghanistan are not the reasons we’re not participating. The reasons are politics and diplomacy…not that the military is “busy.”

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Besides, America doesn’t have the stomach for a war on its own, and in the case of Africa won’t get any help from the Western world to try and exploit resources as it would mean going back into a tinderbox the old colonials were thrown out of not 50 years ago.

Plus, perhaps there’s money to be made in confusion despite everything; a warlord only interested in securing his powerbase might be more open to selling off his country’s mineral assets for a pittance when he’s being distracted by civil strife?

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As to why there’s no US intervention… Well. The West did damn all in 1994 in Rwanda, and some aspects of that tribal genocide are being played out here again. So it’s par for the course.

We all know why the Bush administration started meddling in Iraq, so I’m not going to go there.

Afghanistan is a different matter. There’s a greater history of getting involved there, as it was the physical battlegrounds of the Cold War. The US and USSR couldn’t fight each other directly, but they could do it by proxy in Afghanistan - one under the banner of protecting its, to use a Stalinist term, “sphere of influence”, and the other on behalf of those who wished to push back the “Red Menace” - including as we all know Osama bin Laden.

Despite some military strikes during the Clinton administration, the cause of which I can’t remember (although i do remember one dyed-in-the-wool Republican insisting to me that it was just to deflect attention from the Ken Starr investigation), Iraq and Afghanistan were basically left get on with it under punitive sanctions and some spying.

The impetus to strike Afghanistan only came about after Sept. 11 to avenge that attack - nothing more nothing less. Human-rights abuses and destruction of UNESCO sites were trotted out as an added justification, but considering the international community didn’t give a rats @rse about women being executed in football stadiums before games in front of thousands of baying men on the 10th of September, chances are that they weren’t much more moved by it on the 12th.

I know that my last paragraph may come across as being cynical or anti-American, but that’s not the case at all, I am writing out events as dispassionately as I can the way I remember them.

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In the past the abuse of women and children was an effect of the war - a mix of adrenaline and a desire to take immediate punishment on “the enemy”. But especially since the Balkan war in the 90s we’re seeing it more and more as a systematic tool of war, particularly for the reasons CiCi says, although the spread of AIDS is doubtless a significant side-effect.

Further reading for those not familiar with this aspect of the war:

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/world/2008/1119/1227026414044.html

http://www.oxfamamerica.org/whatwedo/emergencies/congo/news-publications/in-congo-women-face-sexual-violence-and-its-legacy-of-shame-and-hardship

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Also can I please ask you to not discuss the particulars of war. This is important to talk about but the details are very disturbing to me and to some other people. I heard things in an earlier thread that I would not imagine in my worse nightmares. I’m not talking about what’s being discussed here now, just please no details. It is haunting and although it should be so that we know what is going on and do something about it, there are details that people would rather not hear.

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It’s really a sickening situation and I’m so glad Ben is doing this. As someone pointed out - Ben is involved in a LOT - and I think he’s always had it in him to be the type of person he is today. He’s had a bad rap in the past, but who among us hasn’t gotten off track once or twice in our entire lives. I hope he goes into politics one day.

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