The delusion present in this thread is that there is some concrete definition of good and evil and that concrete definition can be defined as a single variable. But the palehorse delusion is that he is that GOD appointed arbiter, who can go into another society, and unerringly distinguish the people who are 100% evil and leave unscathed the people who are 100% good. Perhaps because the taliban wear black hats that say T and Al-Quida wears black hats saying AQ.
And that somehow both Al-Quida and the Taliban are simply people who were born conceived in sin. Predestined to be tainted by bad ideas and incapable of ever learning better. And they started out by picking the wings of flies, and went on to band together with a goal of tearing down society because they just hate everyone. And in a sense, one can always find a few such examples. And if we listed to the British in 1776, our George Washington was one such person along with Ben Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Paine, and the rest of those rabble rousers. And since they could not be persuaded, they had to be hunted down and killed.
Meanwhile back at the ranch, AQ and the taliban think they are the good guys and they are saving their world from the bad guys in GWB, Palehorse, and the rest of the evil Western imperialists. And at least in the case of the taliban, they are also saving their world from their own home grown thugs who set up their own private fiefdoms. And to do so, they must embrace their romantic old way of life that never really was before the Western imperialists came. With the rather draconian measure of disenfranchising 50% of their population, namely all females, in the process. Normally such religious states have limited shelf lives, the people rebel when these leaders themselves become decadent. But in the grand scheme of things, at least the taliban did break the power of the war lords that were holding Afghanistan in state of near perpetual anarchy that the petty squabble of the US and the Soviet Union helped create. And on the good side of the ledger, Afghanistan was finally moving towards a state of nationhood where trade and commerce was becoming possible because goods could be transported because thievery was now stopped. And left alone, Afghanistan would have started resembling much of Pakistan which was embracing modernity and the benefits it brings.
As we all know, AL-Quida and not the taliban attacked us, and now we are in this big snit. And we can't see that things are multi dimensional, and are reduced to the same romantic failings the taliban has about preserving a way of life that never was. We see nothing but evil in them and they see nothing but evil in us.
I can't per say disagree with palehorse that the taliban represents the wrong road for both Afghanistan and Pakistan, I am simply saying we have to show them rather than force them. And because we have built nothing in Iraq and Afghanistan, we have nothing to show.