In 1989, after helping defeat the Soviets in Afghanistan, partly by
funding the activities of one Osama Bin Laden, the U.S. walked away.
I
have seen references to this fact over and over again in discussions of why
Afghanistan-- and Pakistan-- is still a mess of anti-western agitation.
The U.S. helped knock out the Soviets and then walked away and allowed
fundamentalist Islamic elements to take over. To this day, apparently,
Pakistan does not trust the U.S. to provide stable support in their struggle
against radical Islam and that is why they hedge their bets by maintaining
links to the the Taliban leadership.
Those who believe that righteous indignation and protest
politics were appropriate in the struggle to end Jim Crow, but that something
less will do as we seek to dismantle mass incarceration, fail to appreciate the
magnitude of the challenge. If our nation were to return to the rates of
incarceration we had in the 1970s, we would have to release 4 out of 5 people
behind bars. A million people employed by the criminal justice system could lose
their jobs. Private prison companies would see their profits vanish. This system
is now so deeply rooted in our social, political and economic structures that it
is not going to fade away without a major shift in public consciousness.
NY Times May 15, 2011
Yeah, not likely anything good is going to happen in that sector of the
economy anytime soon.
