It’s about a newspaper pundit, a would be Technocrat, wringing his hands over Afghanistan, as if the British and the Soviets abandoning their Colonial Projects were not the starkest kind of objects lessons? Not to speak of Reagan’s presenting the Mujahedeen as resembling ‘The Founding Fathers’!
But, sir, your pièce de résistance: ‘ Thick argument. “If you feel so strongly hospitals should exist, you become a hospital porter” e.g. argument by specious analogy. The strategy used by Antonin Scalia in such cases as Shelby County v. Holder. See page 734, here:
https://scholarship.law.wm.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1688&context=wmborj&httpsredir=1&referer=
Regards,
StephenKMackSD
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My reply to Paul A. Myers
Mr. Myers thank you for your revelatory lessons, that history teaches to those willing to listen! But note that Nicholas Gilani finds your historical precise so inconvenient , the last sentence of his final comment, to your reply is unmistakable:
‘The proper strategy is to create two zones of control for the two major ethnic groups, the Persian speaking Tajiks and the Shiite Hazara on the one hand; and the Sunni Pathans, on the other. This needs to be underwritten by Iran and Pakistan, respectively. This arrangement would then in turn be back-stopped by Russia, China and the US along with India.’
Is there ever a shortage of Arm-Chair Generals, like Mr. Gilani , or Mr. Rachman in a slightly etiolated version of such? Mr. Gilani offers what resembles the position of a Neo-Con Imperialist: ‘two zones of control for the two major ethnic groups,’ . In sum. the Afghans are to remain under the tutelage of others who know best?
Regards,
StephenKMackSD