I am unpursuaded by your critique of "scardycat's" post. Your central argument comes out in the two alternative views of the attack that occurred. One, it is an attack on the US and therefore we should act alone and two, it is an attack on all civilized countries and therefore we should act in concert and in submission to the UN. The problem with your argument is that you erroneously assume the two positions are mutually exclusive. They are not. The attack was clearly and self evidently an attack on the US directly and we clearly have the right to respond in defense of ourselves. It does not take a great leap of logic or imagination to also see this attack on the US as an attack on all modern, western democracies that promote the anthesis of what Bin Ladin stands for, namely a free, open society run by democratically elected leaders, featuring secular states that tolerate religious freedom and believe in the technical progress of human societies, relying on science and technology. In that context, any developed country in the world could be the next target for these groups.
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<br>Bin Laden and others like him are essentially anti modern. They want to create theocracies that are purged of modern (western) influence and take society back to a more primitive (and in their mind), correct version of Islam. The US just happens to be the largest example of the kind of state they abhor, so we get to be their first target.
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<br>As for poor Afghanistan (and poor they are). It is well accepted in most civilized societies that if you harbor a fugitive, you become an accomplice to his crime. President Bush is simply applying this principle to countries. It is a shock to me that you or anyone would try to let the Afghan government off the hook for protecting Bin Ladin. Yes, the Afghan people have suffered much over the years and still suffer under their current leadership. Many of them don't support the Taliban any more after they learned what a bunch of facists they are under the guise of Islamic fundamentalism. The leaders are responsible for the current crisis. They have allowed their country to become a "nesting" and training area for these terriorists. Now is the time to damage and destroy this terriorist leadership and structure, not later when they can do even more damage with biological or chemical or nuclear weapons.
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<br>Wouter, these people would kill you in a heartbeat as part of the decadent, modern civilization they abhor. I don't think we could appease them if we tried. Remember the lessons with the last two great facists Hitler and Stalin (yes Stalin). Appeasement didn't work and they killed millions of people.
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<br>You also bring up those "old warhorse" aguments that all liberals in our country bring up regarding the past sins of the US. No country is without "sins" if you review its history carefully and the cold war created strange and sometimes not too pleasant bedfellows. But our past sins don't bear any relationship to our responding to current actions. Yes, we helped the Taliban against the Russians and that seemed a good thing for a number of reasons, but they then turned on us. That is too bad for everyone; us and them.
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<br>But I would ask you to always consider one thing. If you had only two regimes under which to live and raise your children, would you rather do it under the US or the Taliban?
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<br>Your disclaimers at the end of your post ring hollow when the body of your message implies a sense of support for and granting of moral equivalency to the actions of those facist, fundamentalist thugs.<br><br>