>
...and I am not sure Afghanistan should have been about anything but blowing Tora Bora to hell when we knew he was there and going home >
>Agreed....
>
>I will never understand why Rumsfeld and the U.S. didn't finish the job. Ironically, some of the testimony from detainees at Gitmo has consistently placed bin
>Laden at the location. I think the U.S. learned a hard lesson from that day - if you want something done, do it yourself and not rely on Afghan proxies.
>
>(There are some who believe bin Laden might now be hiding in Iran....who knows)
Personally I doubt that. The Tadjiks would sell him out in a heartbeat.
I think Baghram is actually what the goal is there and maybe a couple of places up the Panshir valley. A ground base in South Asia so when it all goes to hell in Pakistan - or Iran - we have a staging area. Pretty well located.
The other advantage seldom mentioned to invading someplace, even if you leave, is all the little things you leave behind. Iraq will literally never be the same. Neither will Afghanistan <s>
Tracy, what do you think?
Charles Hankey
Though a good deal is too strange to be believed, nothing is too strange to have happened.
- Thomas Hardy
Half the harm that is done in this world is due to people who want to feel important. They don't mean to do harm-- but the harm does not interest them. Or they do not see it, or they justify it because they are absorbed in the endless struggle to think well of themselves.
-- T. S. Eliot
Democracy is two wolves and a sheep voting on what to have for lunch.
Liberty is a well-armed sheep contesting the vote.
- Ben Franklin
Pardon him, Theodotus. He is a barbarian, and thinks that the customs of his tribe and island are the laws of nature.
