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Tom Francis - SWSports

On Wed, 09 Sep 2009 18:28:38 -0400, wrote:

On Wed, 09 Sep 2009 15:05:53 -0400, Tom Francis - SWSports
wrote:

The left has taken to calling Afghanistan "Obama's Vietnam." Well, if
we're going to let troops die as part of a PR stunt, then yes, it does
begin to resemble Vietnam.

Either we're going to give our troops every advantage in an effort to
allow them to win or we should, in fact, get out. If Obama has in mind
a Nixon-style "decent interval" where we are going to let troops be
killed in an effort not to win a war but to simply contrive a
politically-palatable "defeat with honor," then get them out of there.

I say, get them out of there. We have nothing to gain by staying.

If we really wanted to get Bin Laden the best way would have been to
ignore him until he stuck his head up and then just send in a small
team to shoot him.

I said that all along - drop a couple of specialist "Black" teams in
and let them go at it.

We should have bombed Afghanistan with school supplies and other aid
after the Soviets left. They would have handed Bin Laden's head to us
on a plate.

Eh - I'm not so sure about that - sounds good, but you still have to
deal with the Taliban - 5th Century religious warriors.

I really wonder how much of this is driven by women's rights groups
and drug warriors.

Both good points, but I think it's more of a historical issue.
Afghanistan has been an important nexus point for a long time in terms
of both conflict between empires and between the East and West. More
than one major empire has tried to tame Afghanistan and failed.