Black Jade tells me I "can't have it both ways". The war can't be both about terrorism and about "petroleum". But it sure as hell can be, in due proportion, about the fact that, after spending American lives and treasure defeating terrorism in a region, we are going to do anything and everything we reasonably can to leave that region less dysfunctional -- politically, economically and socially -- than it was before. Sure we will have failures, but in many cases our influence and our efforts will be able to achieve significant improvements. In central Asia we already have materially improved the prospects of the Afghan people, and there is every reason for us to continue acting in the rational hope that these gains can be consolidated and preserved.
The "loonies" injecting their populist venom into this thread are, more to the point, CYNICS who suggest that we shouldn't even try, or that all our attempts are, de facto, illegitimate. Fortunately they are irrelevant. America is recovering some of its old confidence. We really are better than "them". We truly have discovered, and realized in the development of Western culture, a core set of principles concerning the way that humans should live, how they can best govern themselves, and how they can best provide for their sustenance. By doing what we reasonably can to inseminate, inculcate or encourage these principals elsewhere in the world, and helping to provide the economic conditions under which they can germinate and grow, we really can make the world a better place. This is the course Reagan set us on 20 years ago. Despite the fitful nature of the progress, it IS working. We are making a difference, and should certainly not back off now. Let the cynics stew.