How practical/effective would it be to quarantine Afghanistan?

[Wezil]

You are right. The only proper way to get rid of California is to split it off the mainland.

Arizona Bay. [/Bill Hicks]

[Kitschum]

Quarantine means quarantine. Stick them in a box until they run out of bullets and fertilizer or take out their rage on each other.

What about tunnels? That was always a problem in 'Nam, and the Afghans clearly have experience in cave living and digging.

Kitschum, what about porn? Could they be won over with a massive influx of American pornography? I mean the softcore kind, of course; pics of a woman in handcuffs and a leather mask getting whipped would get them excited for all the wrong reasons.

I guess that might work. I hear the Internet cafes in Pakistan are always full and poorly lit. The Iranians loved them some Baywatch in the 90s so we just have to figure out what the naughties equivalent is. Gossip Girl?


Here's an article on the topic that seems to support a strategy of 'cultural warfare':

But increasingly, the days when presidential speechmaking and pig breeding were must-see TV are behind us. As choices in what to watch expand, people will have access both to a wider range of voices and to a growing number of channels keen to give the audience what it really wants. And what it wants seems to be pretty much the same everywhere -- sports, reality shows, and, yes, soap operas. Some 715 million people worldwide watched the finals of the 2006 soccer World Cup, for example. More than a third of Afghanistan's population tunes into that country's version of American Idol -- Afghan Star. The biggest television series ever worldwide is Baywatch, an everyday tale of lifesaving folk based on and around the beaches of Santa Monica, Calif. The show has been broadcast in 142 countries, and at its peak it had an audience estimated north of 1 billion. (Today, the world's most popular TV show is the medical drama House, which according to media consulting firm Eurodata TV Worldwide was watched by 82 million people last year in 66 countries, edging out CSI and Desperate Housewives.)

The introduction of cable or satellite services in a village, Jensen and Oster found, goes along with higher girls' school enrollment rates and increased female autonomy. Within two years of getting cable or satellite, between 45 and 70 percent of the difference between urban and rural areas on these measures disappears. In Brazil, it wasn't just birthrates that changed as Globo's signal spread -- divorce rates went up, too. There may be something to the boast of one of the directors of the company that owns Afghan Star. When a woman reached the final five this year, the director suggested it would "do more for women's rights than all the millions of dollars we have spent on public service announcements for women's rights on TV."

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2009/10/19/revolution_in_a_box?page=full

http://www.afghanstar.tv/

[Kitschum]

I'd like a wall in California. Anything to stop the flow of job seeking eastern Europeans.

I agree. You already have the Mexicans, you can't take the Polaks and Yugos too, that's not fair.

Besides, south slav women have mustaches and you just can't respect a people who's women have mustaches.

I have to defend the Yugoslav women here, because that's not what I found at all. Lay off the married gypsy women and it should be all right.

But anyway, Heraclitus understands this I think:

[Wezil]

What about tunnels? That was always a problem in 'Nam, and the Afghans clearly have experience in cave living and digging.

Forget Vietnam. Israel can't even quarantine the postage stamp sized territory of Gaza.

The idea of imposing a quarantine so tight on Afghanistan, from the air only (!), that even bullets can't get through is clearly preposterous.

[Riesstiu IV]

Whelp, we failed to beat the Taliban after 8 years, we've killed thousands of people, and radicalized another generation of Afghan youth, so lets compound the human suffering in an already destitute nation by setting up a blockade. Is it ever possible for the American government just go away and stop bothering people?

[Guynemer]

]Is it ever possible for the American government just go away and stop bothering people?

Not sure I understand the question. What else is the American government supposed to do? It's a little too old to go back to school to learn another trade.