Quote Originally Posted by Hanna View Post
And saving women was just an invented reason to meddle there anyway. It sounds good, and it's hard to challenge.
There are plenty of places in Africa where women have it as bad or worse than it was for women under the Taliban. .
as far as i know, the US attacked Afghanistan not to save Afghan woman, but in retaliation to the 9/11 attack and for the ruling Taliban refusing to stop housing and protecting Al Qaida. Unless you really believe it was all a conspiracy, it is hardly disputed that the twin-towers did come down, that Al-Qaida admitted to the attack, and that the Taliban were housing them. So I would say that for once the US had a valid point that was not directly related with oil.

I do agree with you though that the Irak evidence was largely fabricated; and simply a pretext for war.

From a philosophical point of view, the question arises of how to deal with brutal, torturous and dictatorial regimes. (Khmer Rouge, Saddam Hussein's Irak, the abusive Gaddafi regime, Mugabe's Zimbabwe, North Korea and many more). Personally I do not know the answer - but it is not as easy as saying; it is an internal affair, let them sort it out themselves. History might judge us harshly for just standing by watching the abuse next door and do nothing. Remember the millions slaughtered in Rwanda? Nobody helped them - surely you cannot want that?

On the other hand you do not want a self-interested bully (the USA) that applies justice only as itself sees fit and for reasons beyond humitarian (eg oil etc). The ideal would be to really have a neutral / effective worldbody with a mandate to interfere, but interfere in a consistant manner. Unfortunately the UN with its five permanent members - each always seeking to protect their own interest - does not fit the demand any longer - they are obsolete as a world policing body. But doing something is still better then doing nothing.