[wastoute]

As always you make a number of excellent points. We cannot allow the militants to regain control of a nation and with that passports and other sorts of administrative things that make the terrorism business easier. We don't need to build a nation there, we just need to keep Al Queda and the Taliban out of the gummint. It ain't victory and it ain't pretty but we can't allow a situation where there is an "Al Queda" State Dept. with access to a Treasury and such. As much as it irks me to have Red State boys and girls dying to protect Blue Staters (I would like to see that end more than anybody) I don't think we can just walk away. We don't need to try to "win" either.

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[nathanbedford]

There is a limit to the spirit of sacrifice of the mothers of the red state boys.You put it very well. So we ask, can technology substitute for American lives, for boots on the ground? Can we get the job done with American air power and Afghan national forces? Can the drones in support of the Afghans do it?

The problem with relying on the Afghans is we expect them to behave as 21st-century men when they are closer to Hunter gatherers or nomads who have recently been provided AK-47s. Much like early American Indians were given flintlocks and firewater. They are not patriots, they are tribal. They are not democrats, they are Muslims. Think of the American Indians who made treaty with the white man against other Indian tribes and why they did so-because they did not entertain a vision which said this is how the world works which, unfortunately for them, the white man held and imposed through his technological superiority. The Indians had no idea of property in the Anglo-Saxon sense, and neither do the Afghans have an idea of nationalism in the 21st century sense. So we can provide the drones and the helicopters and the rockets, but can the Afghans provide the boots on the ground in furtherance of American interests?