rural renewal region
on 06/26/2010 at 10:46 AM
Back to the stone age? That would be an advancement!
You beat me to that one Cmbly but how about this one: A picture is worth a thousand words and that picture aint worth shit.
Imagine what it looks like in the really rundown areas,,,,,,,,,,bring em home!I don’t see the problem. I’d have closed up shop if military troops were sweeping the area too.
This might be one of those cases where ‘you had to be there’. I look at that ‘mall’ and I see it when it is open. I’ve not been to Afghanistan, but I’ve been to Pakistan and things weren’t so different. In downtown Karachi the bazaars looked much like this, except they were open and crowded with people. I was invited to dinner by a local–who shared his home with the chickens, a goat, and a camel. (He was rich–he owned a camel)
BTW, no pigs.
Keep in mind that the lack of what we consider decent infrastructure is a recent phenomena. There’s no difference between this Afghan village and any American frontier village in the 19th century. Except for one thing: In America, we believed in the rule of law. This included ideas like private property rights. Why improve something you don’t own? And if the law doesn’t support your ownership? It’s all Allah’s will, don’t you know.
I do hope we’re not fighting just for better infrastructure. I can be poor and be free. America was, and is, a revolutionary idea in the concept of government. I support fighting for those ideas, of individual liberty, of private property rights, of the rule of law, of equal protection under the law.
That’s what we should be trying to instill in Afghanistan. And Iraq. Respect for such ideas. Otherwise we will fail. Oh yes, we achieved a stupendous military victory back in ‘02. But if nation-building is our goal, we will lose if we ignore ideas over better infrastructure.
I say we launch and obliterate the entire site from orbit with nuclear ordnance. This is the only way to be sure.
