It has long been a Liberal mantra that going into Iraq before completing the job in Afganistan was a mistake. I really can't argue with that logic - nor can I even say that going into Iraq at all was a "wise" decision based upon the outcome.

But that was "then" and this is "now". And while Afganistan may have had some importance after 911, I question what strategic importance it really has for the US today. I'd like to hear what your feelings are on this issue.

Ron

Apart from the poppy fields, this tells you about all you need to know...

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I tried getting some perspective on the board the other day by listing some historical clips about WWI concerning the OIL FOR BLOOD issue that has lasted longer than one-hundred years and managed to only get half of them posted before my workers showed up.

Both Afghanistan and Iraq, and really Iran and even other countries have long been the blood fields of the OSS and now CIA operating under CORPORATE SCRUTINY and not so much "POLICY." In other words, just like the BANANA WARS of Central America we strong-armed our way into these countries with bribes and military equipment. Instead we should have used trade and exchange to foster WARLESS change to our benefit, but then why would any nation want to change another nation unless some deception was not afoot?

These nations that our boys and girls are now fighting in are no different than the ones we fought in save the climate and climb. I can think of many different ways to do business with people of different political persuasions, without offending them, or warring with them for a hundred years occasionally holding out the olive branch. That has been done there before and here with our own American Natives. Just tell me one tribe that has not been screwed and you have your answer to all the countries that have been plundered by our fathers and forefathers in the past unknowingly!

Neither country is important to us, not even for OIL! The United States has more oil producing capacity than any other nation, or as much. I've also produced clips to document this and article clippings, but no one seems interested.

Any crises that we find ourselves in is SELF INDUCED, hence we spend the majority of our time concerned about meeting rising costs. If corruption was removed from government, which it will never be, everyone could go about living a good life and we could start repairing our own infrastructure first before we borrow money to spend on other countries at OUR GRAND CHILDREN'S expense.

This is why Iraq, Iran, and Afghanistan are important:

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Seasoldier/

SeaSoldier your response is absurd. You write about OIL FOR BLOOD; then say, "Neither country is important to us, not even for OIL!"

The Banana Republic comparison is from Mars.

"WASHINGTON — Pentagon leaders yesterday signaled a surge in American forces in

"sooner rather than later" — a shift that could come later this year as they prepare to cut troop levels in Iraq.

Faced with an increasingly sophisticated insurgency, particularly along Afghanistan's border with Pakistan, defense officials said sending more troops would have a significant impact on the violence.

"I think that we are clearly working very hard to see if there are opportunities to send additional forces sooner rather than later," Defense Secretary Gates told Pentagon reporters. But, he added that no final decisions or recommendations have been made.

His comments suggested an acceleration in what had been plans to shift forces there early next year. And they came as the political discourse on Afghanistan as a key military priority escalated on both Capitol Hill and the presidential campaign trail..."

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So, does that mean that the libs haven't been so far off, after all? Hmmmmm?

We have more than enough oil right here "...within our borders," so say the geologists and BIG OIL. Are they lying? If not, then why do we need to be in Afghanistan or Iraq unless the word GREED comes to mind? Maybe these oil fields are illusionary and the truth is the OIL COMPANIES are broke, hence the massive subsidies. Regardless, oil is out in my new vehicles.

Seasoldier/Now, how do you explain why we went to war with two countries that didn't have one man involved in 911?

Afghanistan's Taliban was protecting bin Laden and allow them to train enemy combatants to execute attacks on Americans. Plenty of justification.

Saddam was believed to have possession of WMDs.

No one said their citizens were responsible for 9/11, but their governmens were dangerous to humanity and democracy.

Seasoldier/

Not sure exactly but the story is it was some Kenyen Goat Herder.

It's a smart line of questioning. I can certainly see the argument that, regardless of the fact that invading Iraq was a terrible mistake and a catastrophe for America and the region, there is still higher strategic importance for "winning" in Iraq, to mitigate the harm we did, than winning in Afghanistan. After all, if we pull out of Iraq prematurely, it could theoretically come to look like Afghanistan in 2001 -- a chaotic mix of feuding warlords and religious extremists... only with lots of oil money. But even if Iraq has the greater strategic importance, one could still argue that leaving Iraq is our best shot at "winning." After all, unlike Afghanistan, it was a fairly peaceful and stable nation before our invasion, so perhaps it could go back to being one without the constant irritation of US occupation. Maybe what they need is a little breathing room for whoever will be the new power there to consolidate control. By comparison, Afghanistan was in a state of warfare before we ever arrived, and was a playground for Al Qaeda before we entered, so there's not much hope our exit would change that.

In 1941 we were attacked by Japan. We responded by fighting a holding battle in the Pacific while concentrating our resources to battle the nation that did not attack us, Germany. It was not after Germany's defeat the the U.S. turned its full-fury on Japan.....It seems likely now that as Al-Qaeda continues to be diminished in Iraq, that the U.S. will increasingly focus on "insurgents" in Afghanistan, no?

Not much of a precedent. In WWII, we were up against a genuine Axis. There was a formal alignment of power between Germany and Japan, so when Japan attacked us, we were effectively at war with the Axis.

Moreover, Germany was actively at war with allies we would depend on in fighting the Japanese. From that perspective, it made sense to decide which was the more dangerous of our two main foes and focus on them first, while merely keeping the other in check. By comparison, there was no Axis between Al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein's regime. In fact, they were quite at odds.

A closer precedent would be if, in 1941, we were attacked by Japan and so we turned our attention to invading Spain (which shared some of Japan's fascist idealogy, but wasn't formally aligned with them, nor was it at war with our allies). Heck, even that's a pretty forgiving analogy, since Spain and Japan were more idealogically in tune, back in 1941, than Al Qaeda and Iraq were in 2003. Hussein ran a mostly secular, Stalinist dictatorship and nepotistic kleptocracy, which was largely isolated from the wider Muslim world, and which was driven primarily by nationalist, tribal, and ethnic impulses. Al Qaeda, by comparison, was a extremist religious organization that was anti-nationalist in its outlook (operating in a cellular fashion multinationally and multiethnically).

So a much better precedent would be if, in 1941, we were attacked by Japan and so we turned our attention to invading and occupying El Salvador. El Salvador in 1941 was run by a brutal dictator, like Iraq in 2003, but it didn't have any significant involvement with Japan of 1941, any more than Iraq had with Al Qaeda in 2003.

But, of course, America was run by sane people back in 1941, so when we were attacked by Japan, we focused on the matter at hand, rather than getting distracted by some frivolous pet war with El Salvador.

Would that be the same "sane" people who locked up Japanese- Americans in internment camps without trial?

Yep. Sane isn't the same as flawless. Locking up those Japanese Americans was a terrible mistake -- one that we subsequently apologized for, as a nation. But it was a mistake that was easy to understand, in context. We were at war with a superpower that had destroyed a good portion of our navy and that, along with its allies, theoretically threatened our very existence. In that context, paranoia was almost unavoidable, and so it shouldn't be surprising that we overreacted by deciding to lock up Japanese Americans for a time, while we were fighting the nation of Japan. I'm not trying to justify it -- just saying that when you put yourself in the shoes of those who were making the decisions, their conduct is easily explainable. Those who weren't alive then can only imagine what it's like to be in an all-out war with a pair of superpowers, with thousands of soldiers dying every month and with whole cities of our allies being flattened.

....trying to apologize for FDR, perhaps for a moment we could "put ourselves in the shoes" of those who were most directly affected by his decision to lock folks up on the basis of ethnicity.....

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