{"id":3125,"date":"2025-12-18T15:44:03","date_gmt":"2025-12-18T15:44:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/voteforjoeblog.com\/?p=3125"},"modified":"2025-12-18T15:44:04","modified_gmt":"2025-12-18T15:44:04","slug":"a-proportional-response-in-afghanistan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/voteforjoeblog.com\/?p=3125","title":{"rendered":"A &#8216;proportional&#8217; response in Afghanistan?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><a href=\"https:\/\/voteforjoeblog.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/afghanistan.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"798\" height=\"599\" src=\"https:\/\/voteforjoeblog.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/afghanistan.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-3126\" srcset=\"https:\/\/voteforjoeblog.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/afghanistan.jpg 798w, https:\/\/voteforjoeblog.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/afghanistan-300x225.jpg 300w, https:\/\/voteforjoeblog.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/afghanistan-768x576.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 798px) 100vw, 798px\" \/><\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Inter-Religious Center photo, BYU.edu<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I just finished reading a rather in-depth <em>National Geographic<\/em> piece on Afghanistan, written 20 years into America&#8217;s war here (and just prior to the final U.S. withdrawal).  The war was sparked by &#8220;9\/11,&#8221; and created havoc, and death, across Afghanistan.  Instead of doing a targeted strike on Osama bin Laden, who admitted to &#8220;9\/11,&#8221; and, perhaps some other al Qaida upper-level operatives in response; we rather, in a knee-jerk revenge fashion, targeted the entire country.  President George W. Bush, during a memorial service for the victims of 9\/11, famously said at the time:  &#8220;Today we will pray.  And tomorrow we will get revenge.&#8221;  Doesn&#8217;t seem a Biblical New Testament principle, does it?  Anyway&#8230;  Just in human cost, estimates are there were some 3,000 civilian deaths a year, for the seven years prior to when the article was written, and 43 percent of these were woman and children.  We lost some 3,000 people on 9\/11, and that attack wasn&#8217;t initiated by Afghan women and children.  There should have been a proportional U.S. response, not this. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Inter-Religious Center photo, BYU.edu I just finished reading a rather in-depth National Geographic piece on Afghanistan, written 20 years into America&#8217;s war here (and just prior to the final U.S. withdrawal). The war was sparked by &#8220;9\/11,&#8221; and created havoc, <span class=\"excerpt-dots\">&hellip;<\/span> <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/voteforjoeblog.com\/?p=3125\"><span class=\"more-msg\">Continue reading &rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3125","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/voteforjoeblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3125","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/voteforjoeblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/voteforjoeblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/voteforjoeblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/voteforjoeblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3125"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/voteforjoeblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3125\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3127,"href":"https:\/\/voteforjoeblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3125\/revisions\/3127"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/voteforjoeblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3125"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/voteforjoeblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3125"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/voteforjoeblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3125"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}