American Horse
AKA "Mustang"
American Horse - I respect and appreciate your postion and your input. But I have to disagree with a couple of the points you made.
Quote: You say that the AQ in Afghanistan are the same people who fled from Iraq. But intelligence just doesn't support that. Saddam (who ran a secular tyranny) was enemies with Al Qaeda (who supported a Islamic tyranny) and not only is there no evidence to support any collusion - there is ample evidence to support that Al Qaeda had no presence in Iraq until AFTER we invaded. And then it was only recruiters who found a receptive audience BECAUSE we invaded.
No one would deny that the impetus for the fighting in Iraq for the past several years has come from Al Qaeda. I didnt say they were there beforehand but they came and we wasted them.
Add to that the widely-held belief that there are now fewer than 100 AQ in Afghanistan and I think your point disintergrates.
There may be only a hundred but I read in the WSJ (paper edition a few weeks ago) that ithe Taliban in Afghanistan can no longer tell their own from AQ because of the ongoing infiltation.
Also, the fact that the Taliban offered up Bin Laden and the fact that they have booted AQ out of Afghanistan and your objective of preventing future cooperation between the two groups is - imho - already achieved.
My position doesnt foreclose the fact that the Taliban arent the worse of the worse. If they support a government, even become part of the government; no problem. And "co-operation is not the question; as I mentioned above infiltration is the the more acute problem
I shy away from using terms like "winning" or "losing" because they are so often ill-defined imho. I think they encourage a highly romanticized but incredibly vague perspective on the issue of war. I prefer to talk about naming an objective and weighing whether or not objectives have been met or not.
I steered away from the word "winning" and instead paraphrased Bush's prescription for not returning to the status-quo-ante. We know that first and foremost that was his goal; probably why he accepted a flawed government there concluding it wouild evolve because it would be the only option for its survival. That is the alternative to leaving a rogue state behind, which would be a loss,for which we and the region would pay a dear price.
I do agree with your point about the need for international cooperation if we are to continue this fight and I am encouraged that the current adminstration has achieved a lot more in that regard than the previous one. But I still disagree with the decision to allow this "mission creep ."
I don't mean to be offense and I really hope I haven't been. But that's my opinion.
No offense taken, just an honest exchange of opinions ....
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