'US forces cannot enter Pakistan'

We killed a bunch of the enemy, didn't you see the pictures of death highway? Seen OBL lately? Seen what happened to the caves of tora bora? Sure some got away. But how many more would have gotten away if we hadn't even gotten soldiers in the country until February?

Yes we did screw up when we left him alive, but remember WHO made that happen. It's been pretty well documented on FR which party threatened to cut off all funding and supplies if we marched to Bagdhad, and that party isn't in charge any more. I don't think we have any worry that Saddam is walking away from this one.

I never once mentioned anything about the quantity of bodybags. As a matter of fact I DIRECTLY said we didn't flinch when the bodybags did start coming back. The only people that are afraid of bodybags are the hippy dipsticks that don't understand war, thankfully they're on the way OUT. 9-11 made them an endagered species.

Military force exists to protect civilians, war is fought to defend the nation. The plan that costs fewer of our civilian lives is generally the better plan.

I ain't hitting the abuse button.

There's a good chance we won't occupy Iraq, the resistance movement in Iraq is pretty strong, just not strong enough to topple Saddam. During Desert Storm they managed to take control of 90% of the nation. It's not like Afghanistan which is a major trainwreck and will have to be guided very carefully to some form of sane government. There aren't the dozens of warring factions in Iraq, there's an actual infrastructure in place. We'll probably still want to occupy it for a while, long enough to get things settled, but it's probably not going to be the painful nation building process of Afghanistan.

There aren't the dozens of warring factions in Iraq

I concur with nearly all of your other comments in this thread, but I'm not as sanquine as you are on this score. There is a good chance that Kurds and Shiites, for instance, will be at each other's throats. There is an even better chance that Kurds (maybe even in some combination with Shiites and even Sunnis) will try to screw over the Turkmen. If this happens Turkey, I think, will not stand by this time (even though they have in the past when ethnic turks were being slaughtered). They might well intervene unilaterally in ways that could weaken our coalition. Then we have to be careful that the Turks, and even more so Iraqi Muslims, are giving the Armenian Christians a fair shake. Etc, etc, etc...

In sum I fear we will have to nanny it up in Iraq for some significant period of time. It will be worth it though, and in our interest. Not just for the sake of Iraq, but for catalyzing favorable change elsewhere in the region.

Well it ain't all sunshine and daisies, but it's not like Afghanistan, that place is like a combo of LA during the height of the youth gangs and the Bay Area during the height of outlaw bikers. Iraq has 3 or 4 factions that don't like each other, Afghanistan has actual dozens of tribes and sects and juntas and whatever other labels they give themselves that only seem to stop killing each other when some outsider volunteers to be a common enemy (there's a reason the Northern Alliance got that name, if I remember right they alone represented over a dozen groups). None of the places we'll be going are happy fun spots, but for a middle eastern shithole Iraq is pretty mellow and straight forward.

But we have to keep the eye on the prize too, contrary to what Eurotrash like to insist America doesn't have a history of long occupations, we hang out long enough to get a stable government (usually a parliamentary system, I've never figured that one out) in place and leave. We occupy, but never for long, that's just not how we do things. If that was how we did things most of France, Germany, Italy and Northern Africa would be America.

What I am trying to point out is that not doing a good job in Afghanistan is trading a few more army bodybags now for many many more civilian ones in the future.

We didn't let the army do it's job. They wanted to do it. They had the ability but short sighted politicians wouldn't let them do their job because the politicians were more afraid of army bodybags now than civilian ones in the future.

It could have become a quagmire. I concede that point. It was a risk worth taking. Cowardice in our leadership prevented us from killing the enemy.

Afghanistan isn't a nation. We can't make one of it without someone applying a great deal of direct force. We can't and shouldn't do that. Hopefully a powerful government can emerge that will get the support of most of the warlords and hopefully undermine them in the long run. It's going to be a very long and bloody road like it has always been there.

Our job is to make sure that no section in Afghanistan support ALQ and give them a safe haven. We are still a long way from doing that. At least they don't have as much of a safe haven as they did before.

I'm disappointed that we missed our best opportunity to kill the enemy but we have accomplished a lot in Afghanistan so far but without killing the enemy those gains are more likely to be only temporary.

Policians look about as far as the next election.

Ref # 41

Do you mean the death hwy in Iraq or one in Afg ?
We did kill a bunch of Saddam's troops and destroyed a great deal of material. It made him less of a threat to his neighbors but not to his people or to us.

After the war we stood by an watched him kill up to 100,000 of those people that we asked to saise up and overthrow him after the war. We now want them to raise up against him again.
Do you think that they are going to trust us or act favorably toward us if they do take power ? Only if they have an American bayonet in their backs.

We must to occupy and for a long time like we did Germany and Japan. We should have a 100,000 years lease on several large military bases right in the oil fields and at the ports before we let a civilian gov take over in Iraq.

Hopefully a powerful government can emerge that will get the support of most of the warlords and hopefully undermine them in the long run.

Warlords are now officially illegal in Afghanistan. The Karzai government has passed a law stating that no military leader can also hold a political position. Is it going to take awhile to actually affect this? Sure it will. This is why we are helping the government build a military. But it can no longer be left to the "long run" or to gradual "undermining." Warlords who refuse to give up either their private armies or their governorships must be crushed.

The Russians tried that too. It didn't work. The warlords won. The Russians supported a massive national army that lost battle after battle. Then they sent in the Russian army and they couldn't get it done either.

The warlords are the power among the Afghan people. They always have been. You don't want to be insensitive to the Afghan culture do you ? :) I'm sure Bush doesn't. Many of the same ones that supported and still support AlQ are still in power and not going anywhere anytime soon.

We pay them fortunes to not start trouble for now. That wont last.

The Afghan national has no power outside of Kabul and virtually no support from the people. Their loyalty goes to their ethic leadership not any national government.

If we really are going to nation build ( which is doubtful ) it's going to be a very long and bloody road.

I think that the admin is just looking as far as the next election. They'll pay the warlords to play nice for now , including the supporters of ALQ.

Yeah, the Russians did what YOU were recommending that WE should have done upthread!!!

Enough for me. You can have the thread to yourself to carp, recriminate and play arm-chair general to your heart's content.

So ; you're willing to conceed that I'm right are you ?

You seem to be desperate to believe that we're doing exactly the right things. In the real world we're doing some things right and some things wrong. It's important to understand what is wrong and fix it. We should have killed the enemy. It was a huge mistake not to. That would have been difficult and cost American military lives. The admin looks as far as the next election so we didn't.

Now we must destroy the warlords that supported ALQ and still support ALQ instead of paying them off and trying to pacify them.

We absolutely must occupy Iraq and not just for a few months. The admin ( looking as far as the next election as usual ) doesn't appear to be heading in the direction. We have to insist that it does.

The Russians didn't do what I recommended. They tried to do what you are recommending. It didn't work. Outlawing the warlords and build a national army capable of enforcing that is what the Russians tried to do. It's also what we are trying to do.

Then the Russians sent in the Russian army to back up the national army. Because the warlords had a safe haven
( the same one that ALQ has now ) the Russians would have never won. It was like us in Vietnam. When the enemy has a safe haven the war will go on forever.

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