Hi~

Nothing more clearly epitomizes Senator McCain’s poor judgement than his assertion that the central front against international terrorism is in Iraq. Worse, it has led to a deterioration of the real fight against terrorism in Afghanistan and (now) Pakistan. A draft report by our intelligence community due out soon will confirm the consequences of that poor judgement. <link>

Have you ever tried to bake a cake in the oven, turned off the heat for a long time, and then tried to finish your baking by turning the heat back up? Senator McCain thought you could successfully do just that in the fight to capture ObL while destroying al Qaeda. His strategy only turned that oven into an incubator for terrorism.

The Afghan people are exasperated by years of occupation and a failing government. They are tired of the continuing bloodshed and a near failed state. Our ability to help those people constructively rebuild is getting more difficult by the day, and our military options are eroding as quickly.

Worse, we seem to have completely alienated the Pashtun population that dominates the region that separates and overlaps Afghanistan and Pakistan. An excellent study about the Durand Line (the border between these two countries) by a Pakistani officer, Tariq Mahmood, while doing his thesis at the Monterey Naval Academy reviews the critical state of the region even before our invasion. <link>

The fragile state of our relationship with nuclear Pakistan has steadily deteriorated at the very time that building strong bonds was essential. Our ability to isolate and control their nuclear arsenal is fundamentally more important that all of our bluster about Iran.

Our opportunity to build good will in the Afghanistan and Pakistan has been frittered away by George and John’s unnecessary war of aggression in a country where Hussein harbored no terrorists.

God Speed,

David