10. Pat J: The plan one uses to repair a broken washing machine does not necessarily work when fixing a flat tire. Cookie cutter strategies do not work. Trying top create a functioning polity out of the disparate populations in Afghanistan is a real challenge.
16. RV: A good point but sometimes you have to make the best of a bad situation. Politics makes some very strange bedfellows indeed. What is your suggestion for the future? Is there a non-terrorist group in the area we can back that will help end the craziness without a mushroom cloud being involved?
My hope is that Obama will discover India, and make nice with them They have more at stake than we do and are much closer to the source of the problem. An alliance with a motivated, dependable (counts out our EU friends-for the most part), stable democracy would be a pleasant change.
