Wasn’t the war in Iraq
supposed to suck in the terrorists and kill them all over there and not over here in our own country?
Over the past six weeks the Taliban have driven government forces out of roughly half of a strategic area in southern Afghanistan that American and NATO officials declared a success story last fall in their campaign to clear out insurgents and make way for development programs, Afghan officials
So if I understand the way the Bush Administration set things up, this would be a failure of our foreign policy no?
In other War News: The Brits say “F*ck This BS!!”
The pullout came as two of Britain’s most influential generals during the Iraq war delivered scathing attacks on the Americans for their handling of the campaign after Saddam’s defeat. Major-General Tim Cross, who supervised reconstruction projects alongside his American counterparts in 2003, joined General Sir Mike Jackson [see Meteor Blades’ post], former head of the Army, in criticising the US for ignoring British advice. General Cross, a Royal Engineer, is retired but he was a hugely respected figure in the Army and had unrivalled experience in dealing with postwar nation-building. He revealed that he gave advice to Donald Rumsfeld, the former US Defence Secretary, about the size of the force needed to tackle the challenges after Saddam’s downfall, but was ignored.
According to Dr. Jim Soles, (a perfectly objective and not at all biased source) this will have no impact on Mike Castle WHAT-SO-EVER. “So stop asking me!” added the very respected and totally objective Dr. Soles.
You just can’t be happy with good news. They have counseling available for that.
Let’s go back to the subject. Afganistan was secure then we turned it over to NATO and it created an opening for the terrorists. Isn’t that what you guys advocated in Iraq? Let the UN and NATO take over. It would have been a disaster because Iraq was not secure. It would have been nice if they contributed troops under our command, but we seemed oblivious to the fact we needed more.
These issues are a lot more complicated than a quick quip. That is why selecting the next President should be something all Americans take seriously.
We wouldn’t have needed NATO to be in Afghanistan if it had been “stable”. The Taliban and al-Qaeda stepped up its efforts on our guys as we went off to the Iraq misadventure and really were resurgent in 2005 and 2006. Een tho we had sent more troops there, it wasn’t going to be enough and that is how NATO took over military ops (at least in the south where the Taliban is trying to roar back) almost a year ago.
The point being that the “opening for terrorists” never went away because we took our eye off of this particular ball way too early in order to rush off to the Iraq debacle and this enemy has been taking advantage of that.
We are more secure today than we were two years ago. The Taliban no longer rules Afghanistan and Saddam Hussein is no longer terrorizing the world or his own people.
Afganistan was secure
Well bin Laden certainly thought it was secure.
Actually, the Brits would say “bugger this.”
david a,
thanks for visting and responding.
I don’t think anyone is taking the next election lightly.
Why are we in Iraq again, Mr. Anderson?
Because the reasons I hear now are not the same ones I kept hearing in late 2002 and early 2003.
Can you explain this to me, Mr. Anderson?