On 8/13/2009 10:56 AM ChairMan spake thus:

In .com,
David Nebenzahl spewed forth:

On 8/12/2009 11:48 PM Ashton Crusher spake thus:

On Mon, 10 Aug 2009 13:51:58 -0700, David Nebenzahl
wrote:

On 8/10/2009 12:52 PM Doug Miller spake thus:

In article ,
David Nebenzahl wrote:

This is aimed at one particular person here, who posts as
, and who said in an earlier exchange about
Afghanistan, among other things:

We took the Taliban out of power and showed the world that if
you sponsor terrorism, you run the risk of having the US take
out your little empire, blow up your house, and kill your
family. Well, you're wrong about that. Check out this article, from
today's /Wall Street Journal/, no less, which says:

The Taliban have gained the upper hand in Afghanistan, the top
American commander there said, forcing the U.S. to change its
strategy in the eight-year-old conflict by increasing the
number of troops in heavily populated areas like the volatile
southern city of Kandahar, the insurgency's spiritual home.

Well, what do you expect? The previous administration took its eye
off the ball, and started mucking about in Iraq when they should
have been tending to business in Afghanistan. The Taliban have the
upper hand there now, because we *allowed* them to.

I don't disagree with you, only to say that we have as much
business being in Afghanistan as we did in Iraq (which is to say,
for the reading-between-the-lines-impaired, none).

ditto. I have yet to hear a cogent reason for us being there.

The only reason supplied by some who responded in this thread is
revenge (for 9/11). Since when is revenge a valid reason to commit
warfare? (Misplaced revenge in this case; might as well declare war
against Saudi Arabia or Yemen.)

So what should we have done in response to 9/11 then?
Invite the taliban over for a beer and sing kumbiya and tell them how it's
all our fault?
Get real

Doing *nothing* would have been a better response than what we did.


--
Found--the gene that causes belief in genetic determinism