The Israelis are equally thuggish- they just have better PR, built on an American guilt trip about the holocaust.
Westerners have a difficult time understanding the loyalty and motivation of insular tribes, also at comprehending the breadth and depth of corruption in the Afghan regime we support. Much, maybe most of the money intended to win the hearts and minds of the countryside never makes it out of Kabul, other than to be deposited in foreign bank accounts by corrupt Karzai cronies. The only justice is what you can pay for, as well. If you want something done, well, the proper palms need to be greased.
The Taliban, despite all their other shortcomings, are not corrupt, not in that sense. For them, it's not about money, but about ideals. Not that I agree with those ideals, but those ideals do appeal to many Afghans. And the Taliban took care of business in their own primitive way-banditry and extortion were dealt with very harshly. Traditional, conservative country folk felt safe, and were, because what they believed in was the same as what the Taliban believed.
We're not going to remake Afghan society. They will remain devoutly and radically muslim, from our perspective, and women's rights will remain abysmal. The best we can hope for is for them to see us not as enemies but in a more neutral light, in mixed terms, so that they won't harbor extremist forces intent on our demise. That was the whole point, right?
So we need to encourage and nurture the traditional structure and people who can help that happen. If we can help local leaders rebuild and develop their resources, it's a reasonable way to proceed. Locals know what they need to rebuild infrastructure and support far better than any outsiders. If we want to accomplish that, we must, by necessity, bypass the central govt. If we want young Afghan men to do something other than fight us, we need to provide seed money so that their leaders can give them something else to do, something where they can see concrete results for themselves and their families, their tribe. It's what we should have done in the first place, after the invasion.
Despite the Zionist ravings, above, that kind of effort has worked in Iraq. I think we need to accept that much of the violence there was part of a "Salvador Option" executed by our own govt, and it seems unlikely that the Israelis weren't promoting that, themselves. They apparently want very much for muslims to be killing each other, bickering, being weakened and divided in the process. It serves their interests, obviously.
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