"Once the Taliban was in power, the USA wasn't concerned that they were persecuting women and gays and non-Muslims. The Taliban were just one of the many dictatorships the USA does business with and doesn't object to.
"But that changed when the Taliban became anti-capitalist, as they shifted away from a corporate-dominated economy and towards Islamic socialism. That made them a danger to Western interests. The final straw was when they refused to allow a US company to build an oil pipeline through the country. Suddenly the Western press was full of stories about how evil the Taliban were. They became these monsters who needed to be destroyed before they took over the world.
"So the USA invaded, chased the Taliban back into the mountains, and put in their figurehead as president. This Karzai, he used to work for the US company that wants to build the pipeline. He's their guy! And the pipeline is at the top of his agenda ... if the war ever stops.
"Western media call this 'stability' and 'nation building,' but those are just PR slogans for a new kind of imperialism. For decades the USA has manipulated Afghanistan for its own economic and political purposes. So to finally answer your question, what it should do now is stop what's it's been doing. It should demilitarize the country as much as possible, take back all the weapons it can, and just leave. Then it should use its power to convince other countries not to send in more arms.
"Yes, there'll be a war. But without foreign intervention it won't last so long.
"And yes, the Taliban will probably take over again. We'll have to learn to live with that for a while. The Taliban won't last forever. We'll gradually undermine their power, and they'll fall."
"But if everyone else gives up their weapons and the Taliban are the only ones who have them, they could rule for a long time."
"Could be. But peace with the Taliban would be better than war with the Americans. If other countries stay out of it, we can handle the Taliban. Nonviolently.
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