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A Nation Restored - Part I

© lawhawk

Henry Kissinger, former Secretary of State and National Security Advisor to President Richard Nixon, once wrote the book A World Restored. In it, he wrote about the challenges facing the European continent after Napoleon ran roughshod and beat up on his neighbors pretty convincingly despite ultimately losing. Instead of focusing on the wartime aspects, he looked at the efforts of the national leaders in crafting a postwar Europe.

Today, we are in a precarious position as the US is recovering from the devastating terrorist attack, Afghanistan is a nonstate filling a trecherous locale, and the Middle East is as precarious as ever.

A Nation? Restored? Afghanistan was in the unfortunate position of being in the right place at the right time for Osama bin Laden. The country ceased being a functional country that was able to provide for its citizens, patrol its borders, or meet even basic national services. It was ruled by a thugocracy, the Taliban, a group of individuals who corrupted the Koran to their whim in an attempt to fool the population into believing that only a strict interpretation of the Koran would lead the people to salvation. The Taliban sought to purge Afghanistan of all alien strains of thought and punished those who disagreed.

Dissent was all but eliminated and squashed. The Northern Alliance, a collection of warlords and tribal leaders who chafed against the Taliban and the majority Pashtuns running the country. All this was after a bloody civil war and a war against the former Soviet Union. Needless to say, education and basic services were not a priority.

They still aren't.

The United Nations and other relief organizations have been unable to provide basic services efficiently because the Taliban routinely harassed aid workers, taking some hostage, taking equipment and materials, and preventing access to many areas of the country. In the wake of the worst regional drought in years, the plight of the population was, and continues to be, dire.

In this malestrom, the Taliban made a pact with the devil, al Qaeda and its leader Osama bin Laden. Bin Laden built training camps for the al Qaeda terrorist organization, provided money to school individuals in the ways of al Qaeda's philosophy, and set up madrasas (religious schools) where the fanatical and fundamentalist Islam.

The US, following several weeks of planning and preparation, began a bombing and survaillance campaign against Afghanistan. Its purpose was to seek out and destroy the al Qaeda terrorist camps, its leadership, and prevent further use of Afghanistan as a terrorist launching pad.

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