Reply #21: At the time, I thought the reaction to 911 by invading Afghanistan was the right thing to do.

[bertman]

It soon became apparent that there was no intent to to capture or kill bin Laden when Rumsfeld refused to send enough troops to do the job and then gave up at Tora Bora. Then we drove the Taliban AND al Qaeda into Pakistan and the border regions but that still wasn't good enough.

So now we have the inevitable "mission creep". We are no longer there to destroy al Qaeda in Afghanistan (mission accomplished), but to bring democracy or a stable government or some such crap to Afghanistan. It's the same deal as Iraq in my eyes. Except in Afghanistan it's about the pipeline, not the oil fields.

Since the major planning element of the 911 attacks took place in Germany, I'm waiting for us to invade them next. Followed by Saudi Arabia, the nation that supplied us with 15 of the 19 al Qaeda hijackers and that bankrolled the operation. When you consider the transparency of all this and the way we have ignored the nation that had more to do with 911 than any other, it becomes obvious that there is another reason for our intense interest in having large numbers of troops in Afghanistan and Iraq (remember that one big reason we were getting rid of Saddam was the lie that Bush promulgated that Saddam was behind the 911 attacks--which, by the way, many Americans STILL believe despite Bush even admitting that it was wrong).

Ignore all of this? If you mean ignore al Qaeda, then I say NO. Don't ignore them. Use the best method of neutralizing them--intense police and intelligence work coupled with special ops wherever they are. Use surgical strikes to take out their leaders. We would have the cooperation of most international police agencies and national police forces in doing this. It does not require a massive invasion of ANY nation to accomplish that. In fact, the invasions just harden the opposition of people who would otherwise likely support our efforts. But when they are seeing their fellow countrymen and women and children murdered by the "saviour" Americans it is more of an incentive to fight us than to help us.

Combine the intelligence/police/special ops approach with pulling out of the Middle Eastern nations we now have troops in, and we might see a different attitude from the Islamic world.

Just my thoughts. Yours?