> > Then why are we sending MORE troops in there? Because it's still an active battlefield and they're sending in more troops. We kicked the Taliban out and they both returned on their own and were actually invited back by the Afgani government. OK, only the moderate ones were invited back
> Why are we losing more troops there now than in the past? Because when we went in we had righteous anger behind us, allies to help us, and our enemy was both not expecting us nor equipped for us. We were also doing an offensive while now we;re on the defense. Gorillas have the advantage against an entrenched/defensive enemy. Oh yes, we are over extended from Iraq now but we were close to done before the Afghanistan troops were pulled back. But of course, that is debatable. How many years were we in Japan after WWII? When and how many troops did we pull out from there? > Why have drug exports from there exploded? "cause I get high, cause I get high, cause I get high, dada dum dum dum dum" - Afroman Lets see. We have a country where we are in a defensive position against a gorilla army. Stopping people from growing drug crops is not the top of our list. The question probably goes to the point of drug money financing the Taliban. > Why are there still huge problems with warlords? Hm. Because we made them our allies against the Taliban, they are entrenched, they ARE the government in some areas and we have other things to worry about. > Why is it not safe for _anyone_ to travel the country, even those in huge > caravans of armed guards? And it was last safe in which century? See above for defense and gorillas. > We shifted focus away from Afghanistan towards Iraq. Yes, but we felt in some way that we had the situation under control. We had allies with us. We could shift focus. But we did not abandon Afghanistan. > That is a statement I think is obvious. Do you disagree with it? The term laser focus. It implies that Iraq was the end all and be all of our foreign efforts. This is not true. We still have troops in other locations. We still have diplomatic missions going on. > We took troops away from Afghanistan and sent them to Iraq. yes > We took arms and armor away. yes > We shifted money away. yes > We lost some international coalition members in Afghanistan because they > differed about Iraq. yes > We put the more pro-Islamasists in power in Pakistan due to others support > and cooperation with America. very debatable. > We lost the "hearts and minds" war globally that we had in Afghanistan and > lost in Iraq. Again debatable. The hearts and minds were there because of tragedy. It gets lost FAST, especially when it's us. And yes, because of Bush. We lost the leverage on Pakistan with that world-wide support when it > vanished. Not true. Pakistan was and is a complex situation and there is no way that anyone can say that Afghanistan was the reason for its situation. Whats happening there was and is happening in many other places. I don't know that we could have done WORSE in Afghanistan than we have done. > Hopefully, the current renewed focus will help. We could have declared victory, pulled out all of our troops other than a token force, and left them to their own devices. That would have been worse. Bottom line is that we have a complex tangle of ongoing events and while Iraq did take our focus, it was not total as implied by laser like. Pakistan is not Afghanistan. It is a sovereign country with a working government that has given into the wishes of an Islamic extremist group that just happens to be called the Taliban but is most probably made up of members who have been in Pakistan their entire lives. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| Adobe® ColdFusion® 8 software 8 is the most important and dramatic release to date Get the Free Trial http://ad.doubleclick.net/clk;207172674;29440083;f Archive: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-community/message.cfm/messageid:295714 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-community/subscribe.cfm Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/unsubscribe.cfm?user=11502.10531.5
