POLL: Do we belong in Afgani?

[Mr 5 0]

The U.S. long-range plan is to keep a small military and civilian diplomatic presence in Afghanistan for the long run but we do not intend to keep a huge military presence there.

Experience has shown that you cannot impose democracy, it must develop from within the population and we hope to eventually help lead Afghanistan in that direction.
May happen, may not.

For now, we just want a stable and non-terrorist-supporting government there, which we have. Women are no longer treated worse than dogs and we have pretty much destroyed the terrorists infrastructure and the terrorist leaders are dead or scattered elsewhere.
So far, so good.

We don't care if Afghanistan becomes the flower of the Muslim world, we want it to no longer be a base for terrorists. We've accomplished that. Now, we need to keep it terrorist-free, which we will.

From your poll questions, I get the impression that you're skeptical about the U.S. involvement in Afghanistan.

That pitiful country was a base for Osma bin Laden, the chief terrorist and architect of 9/11.
President Bush gave fair warning to the Taliban but they ignored us and held anti-American demonstrations in the streets in response. Three weeks later, we struck. The U.S. military took great pains to avoid bombing civilian population centers, even though the Taliban terrorists keep munitions and troops in mosques, schools and hospitals to protect them.

After we routed the terrorists and destroyed the Taliban, we helped install a coalition government of tribal leaders to administer the affairs of Afghanistan. Later, they'll hold elections.

Afghanistan will never become America but it will be friendly to us as well as stable, allowing us a mid-eastern military base and oil reserves to draw on. The fact that the Afghanistan people are about 50 times better off economically and have more freedom than they've had in decades is a nice bonus - for them.

Yeah, we should be there, it will make a difference and we won't just 'feel' more secure my friend, we'll be more secure, as will all the Afghan people.