The wars in Afghanistan and Iraq were mistakes. We never should have entered either of those countries with armies. Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction which was he justification for attacking that country. Afghanistan was protecting al-Queda and that terrorist group should have been the target of our government not the Taliban. The result of those two invasions has been a high cost of life and a high cost in dollars. Neither of those countries will become the democracies we would like to see in those nations.
Iraq had parliamentary elections last March and still has not be able to seat a ruling government. Afghanistan held an election that was riddled with fraud and now has a president who objects to American and Russian effort to destroy the poppy farms that supply the drug trade.
This week’s discovery of bombs being shipped in aircraft bound for the United States from Yemen, and recent plots against America that have roots in Pakistan and here in the United States, tells me that we have to develop a new strategy against al-Queda and its splinter groups. That ought to be a spy network that works to subvert terrorists. Armies are good at fighting wars with defined lines. There are no defined lines when the terrorist network is spread under cover through out the world.
Will the President have the courage to withdraw our forces from Iraq, Afghanistan, and other countries to save money and lives in favor of a new strategy? Frankly, I doubt it. Politics will probably define his decisions. That will make the United States more vulnerable to attack. After all, if you keep throwing darts at a target you will finally hit the bull’s eye.
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