for your listening pleasure

I like Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young. I saw CSN at a free concert at my college many years ago.

I support our military and think any operation needs our full support. However I don't think we can do much good in Afghanistan. It never was much of a country. It was more like Kabul loosely connecting a bunch of tribal areas. Now the horrible Taliban are, for the second time, gaining control over most of the tribes. Their crime seems to be their willingness to hide and support Al Qaeda.

The Taliban, if left to their own devices, will just get further and further behind the developed world. I'm willing to let them rot. They can never advance because they marginalize half their population. To prohibit women from getting an education and participating in the economy dooms them to poverty. To prohibit music, dancing and beer dooms them to a life with out the richness of human experience. To prohibit tolerance of other beliefs and opinions dooms them to ignorance.

If the majority of Afghans invited the US to help resist the Taliban I'd be for an all out effort to help banish them. You would think a handful of men would support every woman in inviting us but it sure doesn't seem like they want our help. The vote stealing president is nobody to be proud of, nobody who on his own deserves support. So I'd prefer a quick withdrawal and just let the country sink further into poverty.

If we withdrew from Afghanistan and legalized opium that would really put a nail in that country's coffin. Opium seems to be the biggest cash crop there and if legalized prices would plummet further undermining that country.

I mention all this because the CSNY website linked in the original post that is hosting the wonderful music is very anti war just as the band was back in the Vietnam War days.