Rafsanjani of Iran delicately Put: We're in Serious Trouble

While I agree with some of what you say, we have sharp disagreement on others.

For example there was no enemy in either country that we could go after with a massive crushing display of firepower. They were not huddled together in great numbers anywhere. There was no way of making its citizens feel the direct pain of war without either killing them in mass or extending the war so they felt its accumulated pain and wanted no more. In WWII the Axis powers were destroyed. Cities were razed and civilians were killed in mass over long periods of time. That was not a choice today.

I personally think the mistake was "nation building". Not how we fought. I think we should have come in and wiped out the leadership and most everything connected to it and then left. Then we should have told them that if they produce a similar leadership then we'd come back again and do it again until they make a better choice.

I'm also not sure if more troops are only more targets when car bombs and suicide explosive belts are the weapons being used. I don't know how more troops can stop that.

It is quite true that there were no large groups of enemy to fight. For that reason we needed more troops to be able to locate them, surround them and kill them without letting them escape. When there are large groups of enemy to fight, the task can be handled with large weapons. Repeatedly, in both of these wars, we did not have enough forces on the ground to do the job. Add to this that we tried to negotiate with an enemy whose culture takes pride in deceit. We were made fools of many times in these wars because we tried to fight a "gentlemens war".

As for the nation building, Afghanistan will always be a hellhole of turmoil and we should have just gone in and killed as many Taliban as possible, bombed the mosques into dust (Yes, we are fighting a terrorist group that claims to be a religion. And they use their mosques to plan terrorist acts, hide terrorists, fund terrorists so mosques are a legitimate target.) And had we sent in enough troops and allowed them to fight, we probably would have OBL. Then we could have left the country and allowed the UN to go in and do what it does best: kiss muslim a$$ and talk bad about the US. The UN hates us, muslim countries hate us, they did before the wars, they do now and they always will until islam has taken over the US. So there would have been not net change in their attitude towards us.

Iraq is a different story and much more complex. Personally, I think Saddam should have been taken out long ago and we had ample reason to do so. However, I believe that there is a strong undercurrent in the reasoning for the Iraq War that is related to Saudi Arabia. We are precariously dependent on Saudi Arabia for oil. I believe that the President understands that the Saudi government is on its last legs. When the Saudis fall, most likely to a radical group tied to Al Qaeda, we need a solid country in the ME with large reserves of oil on which we can depend. I don't look at this as strictly oil related as many Dems do. I see it as part of handling terrorism from all angles.

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