So now it appears that Kabul has fallen.
The United States, with almost as much ease as it had against Iraq, has defeated the Taliban. Seen fleeing towards mountainous hideaways, the Taliban has certainly not disappeared, but has, at the same time, been soundly defeated in its attempts to withstand all attacks.
Where does that leave the knuckleheads protesting the bombing? Up the creek and without a paddle, hopefully where they will stay for a very, very long time. The fact is this: there were actually people on this very campus that opposed an attack on a brutal dictatorship whose aggressive sexism made it one of the most oppressive regimes that the world has ever known. As a matter of law, women were prevented from exposing skin, learning or working. Nobody in Afghanistan could listen to music. Men couldn’t shave.
Stupidly, of course, some members of our local community opposed our war against the Taliban, which was in a way a measure of support for the brutal Afghani regime. The local liberals who voiced opposition to the United States campaign against the Taliban, and by extension Osama bin Laden’s Al-Queda terrorist network, did so because the United States had faults of its own, presumably so great as to make any attack against others hypocritical.
It is an interesting argument, and hopefully one that can be made more succinctly in the coming days. But one part of that argument is made in ignorance; any comparison of the United States to Afghanistan in terms of relative justifications for an “anti-war” stance is ridiculous.
Facts are facts; anyone claiming that the United States is, in any conceivable way, as oppressive as the Taliban has been for the last few years, is completely devoid of the ability to rationally look at the world. Critics of the United States, while taking a beating in the press for their childish notions of oppression, have not been censored, nor arrested, nor imprisoned for their beliefs. In the days and weeks following the Sept. 11 attacks, there were investigations, roundups and recriminations. But for anyone to allege that cultural critics, that political critics, that anybody was arrested for suggesting that the United States shouldn’t be involved in a war with the Taliban is lying to themselves. The greatest thing about the United States is the openness that we have to openly criticize, at great lengths, one another and our government. Look no farther than our own ridiculous campus.
We have professors who allege that corporations control our government. We have professors who allege that the media creates a dominant paradigm of images and messages that create, or maintain, a patriarchy in our supposedly equal society. We have students whose rabid support for blatantly illegal activities – like smoking marijuana – is not only tolerated, but also underwritten by our own student government.
To those that would allege that such that all of our left-leaners have created homogeneity on campus, their opposition is loud and proud.
We have a Republican Club that religiously opposes much of what the majority around here has to say. For every anti-Israeli on campus, there’s an anti-Palestinian. For every Naderite, there’s a Bushie. For every crunchy, there’s an Abercrombie and Fitch wearing, SUV driving son of a gun.
And none of them have been arrested, either for saying what they believe or opposing the opposition. Not one of them has truly looked a judge right in the face and been truly forced to pick a spoken cell or a quiet freedom. Regardless of the message, opposition in the United States isn’t just acceptable; often it’s encouraged. The liberals who support an opposition to the centrist American way are no different than the Republicans who oppose that same centrality.
Lest this get too far away from its original point that the war against the Taliban was not only appropriate, but justified even in the face of America’s own transgressions, it should be acknowledged that Taliban represented the worst case scenario for most of our local community.
As in, if they think it’s bad in the United States presently, if they think that the oppression and repression of cultural norms is bad here, try Afghanistan circa 1999. Try a country where women’s skin could not witness the light of day. Try a country where sideburns are punishable by various forms of capital punishment. Try a country where education, when available, was for one gender.
The United States shattered a political organization that zealously oppressed its citizenry. There can be no support for the Taliban, rational, political or otherwise, for it was a body whose very existence was a remnant of political structure long thought dead in the world. To suggest that the United States was wrong to destroy the Taliban, or at least to destroy its political power in Afghanistan, is foolish and wrongheaded.
Instead, revel in the relatively simple defeat of the nation, and hope that the basic freedoms that so many Afghanis have been deprived are returned to them immediately.
Does the United States have fault in the world, for both our own internal existence and our outer political machinations? Of course we do. But to suggest that the United States not participate on the world scene until it is itself perfect is not only short-sighted, it is dangerous.
Should the Taliban have been allowed to stand? Is it preferential that the Taliban continued to brutally rule, if only to change the United States’ supposedly horrendous behavior?
The answer to both is clearly no. Our apparent victory is apparent proof of that, and if that isn’t good enough, surf the news sites showing pictures of women’s faces in a country where that simple act – seeing the sun without facial covering – had previously been punishable by stoning.
