At 08:18 AM 7/30/2003 -0500 Horn, John wrote:
>> From: Gautam Mukunda [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>>
>> Franks is, I think, a choice that might surprise
>> people a little bit. I'm quite serious, though.
>> Tommy Franks, as leader of CENTCOM, led the liberation
>> of two countries at a cost of less than 500 allied
>> lives. Where the Soviet Union and Iran were unable to
>> make progress with years of effort, he won in weeks.
>> In Afghanistan he smashed the Taliban using
>> unconventional special forces tactics where the USSR
>> failed completely. In Iraq he used a battle plan so
>> daring that Patton himself would have quailed at it -
>> and won a victory that _Dissent_, a leftist magazine,
>> said can be compared only to Agincourt, and probably
>> not even there. If that sort of performance, not once
>> but _twice_, doesn't get you on the roster of
>> America's greatest generals, what does?
>
>OK. I'm going to tread where I shouldn't because this is an area
>where my knowledge is sketchy at best but...
>
>My first thought when reading the above is "is the war in either
>Afghanistan or Iraq really OVER?" Sure we've said it is over but
>there's still a lot of fighting going on and bad guys out there.
(excessive quoting left in for context)
In fairness, we have accomplished some very important strategic objective
in both Afghanistan and Iraq:
1) Al Qaeda can no longer train operatives with impunity in Afghanistan
2) We have liberated 28 million opressed Afghans
3) Al Qaeda's operational capacity has apprently taken a severe blow, based
upon their recent concentration on "soft" targets in the developing world
instead of "hard" targets in Europe and the United States
4) Saddam Hussein is no longer a threat to develop nuclear weapons, and
thus be able to blackmail the US, Saudi Arabia (ie the world's oil supply,
and Israel)
5) US troops are no longer stationed in Saudi Arabia, eliminating a primary
grievance used by Al Qaeda to recruit operatives
6) 38 million oppressed Iraqis have been liberated.
Has this solved all of our problems? Not by a long shot. But then
again, what solution in world affairs has ever left the world without
problems? Nevertheless, we should not lose sight of what an incredible
victory the above six events are for the cause of freedom.
JDG
_______________________________________________________
John D. Giorgis - [EMAIL PROTECTED]
"The liberty we prize is not America's gift to the world,
it is God's gift to humanity." - George W. Bush 1/29/03
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