Re: [Marxism] Moderator's note

["Ruthless Critic of All that Exists" <ok.president+marxml@xxxxxxxxx>]

On Fri, Jul 25, 2008 at 1:40 PM, Mark Lause <markalause@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> This morning I had an hour and a half discussion with someone about
> whether the US can or can't play a humanitarian role in Afghanistan.

How about the following scenario:

1) The US needs (for its own cynical reasons) to ensure that the
Taliban doesn't recruit too many people. (In other words, the US needs
to "win the hearts and minds of Afghans").

2) To accomplish that, the US may do "humanitarian" things (such as
setting up schools, hospitals, etc) -- not out of "humanitarian"
reasons, but out of "cynical" reasons.

In this scenario, (2) still ends up benefiting Afghans -- does it not?

I believe this (or something like it) was Mr. Hartal's argument. I'm
not sure if this argument is necessarily incorrect.

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