What exactly is an appropriate response?

[Griff]

Originally posted by Nothing But Net
You have to look at how the Taliban came into power in the first place.

They had CIA support, more fruit of American interventionism.

After seeing 60 Minutes II tonight, I'm even more pissed at those assholes.

Which assholes? The CIA? the Taliban? the Russians? Mike Wallace?

Except for Iran, and maybe Pakistan, most of the Islamic world is now against them.

I don't think we should confuse government positions for the actual feelings of the people of the Middle East. Bin Laden apparently wants to unite the Islamic people against the west. That would probably mean toppling a bunch of authoritarian states with western ties. With a few poorly placed bombs, we could easily unite people behind this or some other nut.

Even Saudi Arabia (who bin-Laden is a native of!) has turned against him.

Hardly suprising since one of his goals is the overthrow of that regime.

Nevertheless, I would trade 1000 Afghani deaths for one more American!

I'm sure the State appreciates your contempt for human life. Seriously though, it is in our best interest to understand why such hate exists for the US. The Taliban are hideous and should be overthrown by the people of Afghanistan, hell the Afghan people should hate us for helping put those maniacs in power. Our support for the Taliban when the Russians were there may be a legitamite cause for intervention but I'm thinking that we've meddled enough.

I predict the Taliban would not be in power for one week longer after we made these demands!

I cannot make any predictions because the law of unintended consequences is at work here.