wrote in message
...
On Tue, 13 Jul 2010 22:31:44 -0700, "nom=de=plume"
wrote:

We had plenty of time in Afg. There was a fairly long run up to that
war.
We
started bombing in October.


We did not have any time. Where are you getting that? They didn't
start until October and that was not in the area around Tora Bora. We
started in the areas where we had local support and we did pretty well
there with our covert forces. We lost OBL in Tora Bora about 2 months
later and that is only 6 miles from Pakistan. There was no way we
could bring in the number of troops to secure that area from half way
around the world before he could run 6 miiles.We dod bounce the rubble
for a couple weeks and hoped we would get lucky. They may have been
able to get the air strikes in faster but that was about all we could
do.
Right now we should be trying to bribe as many of these tribal leaders
with stuff they want and ratchet back the combat mission. We have
reached the point of diminishing returns. They are spending
$300,000,000 a month there according to NBC Sunday morning and that is
ridiculous. You can buy those guys a lot of goats for $300,000,000.
What are we going to do if the next attack comes from Somalia or
Yemen? Dump $300,000,000 a month in there too?
Just to put this in perspective, that $300,000,000 would buy health
care for 300,000 families. (at the Obama care max of $1,000 a month)

We could have brought in many more troops if Rumsfeld had set up the
invasion that way. He didn't.

They were really trying to avoid an invasion for political reasons
both here and in Kabul.

WHAT??? The whole point of going after Afg. was bin laden. The politics were
go for it in the American public's view. Something like 90% approval.

The plan was for a surgical strike that just took out Bin Laden. It
almost worked. When it didn't we should have pulled back and come up
with another plan. If we had just let him relax a bit he might have
popped up some place where we could get him. In that regard, you have
to look at how Mossad dealt with Black September. That was working
great until they shot an innocent waiter.

It didn't work because Rumsfeld did let his military actually take the lead
and get it done. He micromanaged everything and fired all those who had a
different opinion to the point where nobody would offer one.

We are not the Mossad.


Honestly, I'm getting more and more disillusioned with the Afg. war.
Either
Petraeus turns it around or we should get the heck out, and keep a health
supply of drones and special forces available.

The light will come on for you. You are still young.

I've never been happy about killing people, even bad guys. It's the butt end
of the legal system... when nothing else works.