Reply #13: Thinking the US can impose a strrong central government to serve its goals is a dangerous fantasy.

[ConsAreLiars]

Afghanistan has long had its own form of governance, primarily based on very localized family, village, tribal loyalties, local and regional chiefs and "warlords" who provided the forms of organization needed for the common defense and civil order. Alliances formed at above those level created regional stability. Afghanistan, before the wars drove large numbers into a few cities, was one of the very least urbanized countries in the world because the subsistence nature of the the economy required a dispersed population.

The imposition of central authority dependent on foreign powers is the capitalist ideal. But Kerry's model of a carrot-based top-down model, although less bloodthirsty that the PNAC brute force plan, is no less delusional. It is an alternative to the failed PNAC approach that might be be sold to the multinational corporations as a more viable way to gain dominance over that region, and Kerry is making a good pitch to them, but it is every bit as divorced from reality.

The simple fact is that Afghanistan is made up of real people with a long history, many proud traditions, their own cultures and values, and they will make their own future once the imperialist powers get the fuck out. The slaughter and mass murder brought to them by US interventionism has done them no favors. Kerry's desire to serve the ruling class in their imperial goals is, I guess, what he does. But this "plan" does not serve the people of that poor bloodied land, and is it not intended to.

Putting velvet glove over the iron fist is not an answer that serves the best interests of those people, and it is not intended to so so. Don't be fooled. Any who see this as bringing civilization to the brown savages and a good thing might want to try to imagine being "civilized" by Nazi, commie, "islamofascist," or "christofascist" conquerors. Kerry's plan is just one more variant.