exhelodrvr:
They will find a staging ground somewhere, they always have. Why didn’t we for the past forty years assault the Baaka Valley. And where are they staging to go, that they can’t get to now from going to another staging ground? Terrorists are not going to evaporate and civilization throughout history has never been without them….Huge morale boost

.. I didn’t think it was possible to shove the needle past the hate peg and those you mentioned…well they’re already pegged. Which of the countries you mentioned are getting ready for a “We love America love fest?”

Cannon….It wasn’t for the Cambodians or the South Vietnamese.

“Maintenance of credible deterrence is a vital strategic interest, as is avoiding six years of demoralization and malaise. Cutting and running and proving to be the weak horse will get more Americans killed than staying.”

Maintenence of a credible deterrence. Just how would leaving A-stan upset that?

I’m not sure where you went with the avoiding six years of “demoralization and malais(sic)” We left Vietnam and after 33 years (since the NVA took Saigon) we are still a tremendously divided nation over that war.

Lack of will power? We’re a nation divided just about 50-50 between those who are anti- US on everything and those who want us to endlessly commit to wars where the indigenous population won’t even fight for themselves, nor can we get NATO to do more than hand out pizza to our fighting men and woman. We have lack of resolve, lack of unanimity or anything close to it, and we don’t have endless resources to save every piss ant nation on Earth. And it now is totally risible to believe we’re a capitalist country….we’re a Swedish model socialist country where our population in recent polls believes the government should do MORE, not less.

Finally Cannon there are so many permutations of AQ and other terrorist groups that regrouping isn’t a problem for them. Simply look at the State Dept or CIA list of terrorist organizations……it runs in the hundreds.

Whiskey,
Are you aware that Pakistani nukes are under US control? http://tinyurl.com/yur6x5

So you might want to search for another reason.

So we need to stay engaged because people who already hate us will hate us more, because 33-35 years ago our population forced us out of Vietnam even though we were kicking VC ass all over the place and because an old terrorist, OBL, who we’re not sure is alive or dead is living in a cave while we pay the rent in blood and treasure.

In the meantime China is building a blue water navy complete with aircraft carriers, Russia has almost completed it’s reversion to the Soviet Union, Hugo Chavez is roiling Latin America and we feel it’s most important to engage in the tribal areas of A-stan where some 300-400,000 tribesmen just this week went even more anti-American, and the Pakistanis are shooting at our aircraft.

Look, we either nuke ‘em and get the hell out or just get the hell out. Death by a thousand cuts is still not the way to go. I can remember during Vietnam mothers saying that the young soldier who had just been killed, her son , was in kindergarten when we got involved in Vietnam and she didn’t think she had raised a child to simply go 8000 miles away and get blown up by a land mine. If we’re not careful that same question will be asked again in the not to distant future and the reasons I’ve read so far for A-stan don’t pass muster.