Fear the Taliban? The US nation-building employed in Iraq and Afghanistan has been brutal

THE manner in which thousands of innocent human lives have been swept out of the way of our military force's swaggering advance into Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan, has been positively barbaric in it's application. Millions of refugees across the borders, hundreds of thousands more deliberately impoverished as a result of our bombing raids and assaults.

The rate at which we indefinitely imprisoned tens of thousands of the population without trial, charges, or counsel (many swept up in raids of 'opposition' communities on behalf of the stubbornly un-democratic regime under our military protection) is frighteningly despotic.

It always gives me pause when I see folks in the U.S. look on at religious and nationalistic organizations abroad and express 'fear' of them. Seeing those kinds of associations of fear toward the populations our military forces have devastated, and are, as we sit here, in the process of arbitrarily attacking and killing in bulk , lead me to conclude that those 'foreign' lives are not given the same faultless consideration we grant our sweet selves.

The Taliban are not a threat to the U.S.. They are a threat to our military's ability to maintain their Potemkin of democracy in Kabul in power and absolute authority. They may well be a threat to the Pakistani government's electoral ambitions. In presumed defense against all of that, the U.S. forces are employing a scattershot approach in which everyone in the way of their deadly bullets or bombs is initially considered 'militant' or 'insurgent' until the locals can prove otherwise.

Outside of the efficacy of the militarism itself, there's the issue of proportionality of the response to the initial killings which led our forces there. Most of the battles being waged inside of Afghanistan are against the resisting effects of our very military presence in a self-perpetuating cycle of attacks and reprisals. I can't imagine that more than a fraction of the 'targets' have any detailed knowledge at all of the initial attacks on our nation; the perpetrators, or the victims.

I think that what many Americans 'fear' is the reckoning they perceive is coming due from these folks and their families who've been dehumanized in the face of our military advance across their homeland. It's a ridiculous notion, given the limited reach of the impoverished inhabitants of these terminally besieged nations.

If anything, the threat our forces face is a direct result of the stubborn insistence of our military and the administration in keeping our troops within reach of those individuals there who are inclined to the violent expressions of liberty and self-determination.

It'll be truly ironic if Americans have come to fear the militarized Afghan and Pakistani resistance from their safe perches here at home more than those folks abroad fear our devastating military forces that are operating with impunity and calculated recklessness in their (sovereign) front yard.

Any anti-american resentment will be converted into anti-taliban resentment once the Taliban reestablish their rule. If the people of Afghanistan do not wish to be ruled by the taliban, than they should fight against them. I'm tired of America trying to force them to accept our democratic ideals.

. . . but I read a quote from a Pakistani government official today who cited the polarizing effect of the US military presence which is drawing the population closer to the Taliban in their resistance.