A rejoinder to those who opposed our going to Afghanistan in the first place

Alan Chin on “the 9/11 Decade”: Beyond Pushpins On A Calendar — BagNews: "Two months later, flying from JFK for Afghanistan, we could see Ground Zero still burning. It was a just war with universal outrage and support. The Uzbek navy ferried journalists across the Amu Darya River into northern Afghanistan, French paratroopers held the Mazar-i-sharif airfield, and small American teams were attached to each Northern Alliance unit. The conventional fighting was easy, and six thousand Taliban, Pakistanis and other foreigners of Al-Qaeda’s Islamist international brigade surrendered in Kunduz."

I still think it would have been better to hold our fire and take a more pinpoint approach as we ultimately did with Bin Laden. More US ground wars should have been the rule following Korea. But a combination of testosterone, military industrial and commercial interests and political laissez faire created one if the saddest eras of our national history. And we do not seem even now to have learned the lesson. If the President could understand and articulate the painful change needed he would do us all a service, win or lose. No other President has though the most likely was Carter who has been appropriately marginalized by those whose behavior manifests the criteria mentioned.



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