On 28/11/2006, at 2:52 PM, jdiebremse wrote:
--- In [EMAIL PROTECTED], Charlie Bell <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
The world was with you on Afghanistan. You should have finished the
job properly.
Sorry, Charlie, but the world was *not* with us on Afghanistan. Oh
sure, they were there in word - but the world was painfully short
of the
support that really matters.... boots on the ground.
Much of the world simply isn't able to provide soldiers as most 1st
world countries have been cutting back to basically a defence force,
and there have been enough "friendly fire" incidents in joint task
forces in the past to make military forces wary of combining troops.
And the US didn't need extra troops. Providing soldiers is not the
only way to support an ally (and Britain did provide soldiers anyway).
The US response to 11/9 by going after the theocracy that provided
succour to the terrorist groups made sense. Approval is often support
enough. The US then squandered that good will.
There's a NATO summit going on right abouts now, and I can only hope
that one of the agenda items is why the world's greatest military
alliance is running into so much trouble in Afghanistan.
Because it didn't do the job properly, and got sidetracked by the
desperate need of Bush and Cheney to "take Saddam out", and then
making a complete screw-up of it by not listening to the military on
how to go about it. Overwhelming force, and a full rebuilding program
in Afghanistan followed by a peacekeeping force. Then turn to Iraq,
and do the job properly. Instead the administration screwed up the
area to the immediate East and West of *another* region they're
focussed on...
Charlie
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