Afghanistan - Brian's Position

Brian, I'm taking the liberty of taking your comment and "promoting" it to a Post. After seeing how this "comment" process works, I think we should each be making posts with anything of any reasonable length. We can reserve comments for short points that are directly relevant to something one of us said in a post, but for anything of substance, we can each post. Let me know what you think. In any case, here is a post of your comment to my Afghanistan post. I will post my thoughts in a new entry.

It looks like a pretty straightforward reporting of the details of a report stating we need to redouble our efforts in Afghanistan. I think it is going to be hard to keep the Taliban from ever coming back to some extent in Afghanistan, given that we can't stay forever and the area has always been a haven for heroine production with not much else as an economic base for the country to draw upon. Because it's a country with bleak economic hopes, the terrorists find it a very appealing base of operations.

Why does an upsurge in Taliban activity in the south, where we recently handed control over to a multilateral force, by the way, have to become an indictment on the Bush administration? They do reports like this to gauge where problems exist so that they can assist the Karzai government where it is needed, and make the most efficient use of available manpower. If anyone expects to just control Afghanistan with a huge troop level forever and have no setbacks, they are not assessing the long term situation properly. We can't become a total police state force, so the balancing act between letting that government do for itself what it can while assuring things don't deteriorate will be a long term(5-10 years?) project for us.

I may as well say (before the rebuttal?) that I reject the premise that if we weren't in Iraq, Afghanistan would be better, as I've heard countless times before. Again, I think the proper troop levels will always be a matter of conjecture in every conflict. Karzai always wants more, but we need to get them to stand on their own two feet, just like Iraq, right?
It annoys me when people use any apparent military setback we have in Iraq or Afghanistan as an excuse to criticize the Bush administration.

Lastly, I'll add that I never thought Iraq would be a certain success. And it is looking more like a potential disaster with the ever increasing sectarian violence. But I'm not ready to throw in the towel, because many people who have and are there stil think we can save the situation.

I agreed with the president's call at the time to engage in Iraq, given the situation that existed then. Many who now call for his head, like Hillary, also agreed with the decision. History will tell us in a few years whether it was a wise decision, or a bad one. But why does it have to be framed like "Bush is a lying SOB who tricked us into going into war with Iraq". Aren't we a little more mature than to sink to that level? We are all in this together, and I hope whoever gets into power in the Congress and White House can get the people to unite behind a plan for success against the terrorist states that want to destroy us. It is not hyperbole. Read this every day to get a sense of the urgency in the middle east. http://www.dailyalert.org

I read things about how Bush uses terrorism as a cover to extend the powers of the executive branch beyond it's intended scope. Hell, he's just trying to make sure nobody is trying to blow us up! What other motivation could he have? Why do liberals percieve the Bush White House as having some evil intent? That sort of boogeyman paranoia makes me think people are either ignorant, paranoid, or just playing the fear politics they accuse him of in reverse.

People can agree or disagree with his policies, but the emotional and personal attacks on his character bother me. I really believe the guy is doing his best to lead the country, and the fear mongering about the evil intents of the shadowy money men and Saudi connections blah blah blah serve no purpose in a serious discourse on the direction and choices this country needs to make to keep our future generations healthy and successful in the world. Please understand that I'm not accusing you of these tactics, David, I never hear you say that kind of rhetoric. But it's out there big time in the media and from politicians all the time.