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I don't really have an opinion at the moment about the international coalition's actions - there's not enough information available for me to assess what's really happening and why certain actions are being taken. Developing an opinion at this stage seems premature for me.
As for a post-bombing response: infrastructure is a great idea, I just think it's one level too high for what the region really needs. A great many of the conditions in Afghanistan - political and social - are indirectly related to environmental scarcity, and I think that working to repair the land itself might be the best place to start. It doesn't impose Western cultural mores of any kind on the Afghan people - in fact, it frees them to return, if they like, to a traditional lifestyle that is presently difficult to impossible given the damage done by decades of conflict in the region.
Part of this thinking comes from a project I was briefly involved with during university, a study of environmental change and accute conflict. The research that was started back in 90-91 predicted this sort of fall-out, as in this quote from the Project on Environment, Population and Security:
"Conflicts generated in part by environmental scarcity can have significant indirect effects on the international community.
Environmental scarcity can contribute to diffuse, persistent, subnational violence, such as ethnic clashes and insurgencies. In coming decades, the incidence of such violence will probably increase as environmental scarcities worsen in some parts of the developing world. This subnational violence will not be as conspicuous or dramatic as interstate resource wars, but it may have serious repercussions for the security interests of both the developed and developing worlds.
Civil violence within states can affect external trade relations, cause refugee flows, and produce humanitarian disasters that call upon the military and financial resources of developed countries and international organizations. Moreover, states destabilized by environmental stress may fragment as they become enfeebled and peripheral regions are seized by renegade authorities and warlords. States might avoid fragmentation by becoming more authoritarian, intolerant of opposition, and militarized. Such regimes, however, sometimes abuse human rights and try to divert attention from domestic grievances by threatening neighboring states." |
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