The real problem is that it was the wrong war against the wrong target, and everyone knows it, and the real perps of 9/11 are laughing at the entire West because of it – and still making astronomical amounts of money from our addiction to oil.

What should have been done? Simple. Invade the country of the real perps – Saudi Arabia, which would incidentally have been a pushover. Seize all Saudi-held assets and money, arrest all members of the House of Saud resident in the USA. Invasion having succeeded, turn the Grand Mosque into a pig farm and use the Black Stone, suitably broken up, as part of the concrete for the foundations of a brothel, and permanently annex the oil-producing areas.

The West has been at war with an utterly implacable enemy for 1300 years. Time to once again wake up to that fact, and end it.

100% with you on Europe. NATO is a worthless alliance. We invoked the NATO charter after 9/11, have they answered the call? In fact, I’d say that we’re only still there because GWB went back on his campaign promise to avoid nation building – a promise he broke because that was the only way to get any European involvement at all.

You are correct as to the afford ability of the F22 AND a big navy AND a big Army. In my opinion we should withdraw nearly all our forces from Europe, leaving a minimal skeleton of a few hundred “treaty participant presence” troops and let the euros pick up the tab if Russia gets froggy again.

Yes, you are quite right. The light of a thousand suns will do nicely.

“One Stone to rule them all, one Stone to find them; one Stone to bring them all and in the Darkness bind them – in the land of Saudi where the Shadows lie”.

Time, and well past time, to turn some of the enemy into shadows.

If there is anything the past 30 years have taught us, it is that while America is really really good at running states over, we suck hard at occupying them.

Therefore any cuts at DoD should be made in the army. According to Wikipedia we have ‘70 combat brigade combat teams and 212 support brigade combat teams.’ We could easily cut 75% of that (while keeping the air force, marines and navy at the same size) and still retain our ability to knock over almost any state we choose.

Rename the rump army as the Army Expeditionary Force and put the rest on the border with Mexico. They won’t need to be equipped with tanks, strykers and future combat systems. An M16/M4 and interceptor armor will be plenty for border duty.

@19 has it exactly right. What we should do instead is contract out to local tribal forces that also do not want the Taliban in power. They know the terrain better than we do. It’s much cheaper. Of course we’ll have to give up our mission of transforming them into something they are not, something they don’t want. C’est la vie.

Every sense tells me this will end badly for those stationed in Afghanistan. A 21st century “Anabasis”. A long march to the sea, through hostile territory.

Of course, a realist analyse isn’t nuanced, but to undertake one of the above discribed situations is what we call to make a political option, and its realisation is disguised behind good ol american morals when it’s only question of interests. Not acknoleging that made you loosing the empathy from the yuropean folks

a spade is a spade

In any event, the time for the fiction of a “Pakistani people” is over. The sooner it disappears, the better.

Once the F22 line is shut down it can not be reopened easily, so he is right. Obama has made all the wrong moves the last 3 months. The only good move is allowing Phillips to be rescued. Based on past performance Obama will make the wrong move versus the right move

Thought Yuropeans had the nuance pat down. Apparently not!

Realistic analysis and cynical hypocrisy are really two entirely different animals…. you may have doubts but trust me on that.

[Granted, I should have some sort of empathy for yurothink as I grew up in that end of woods, but always felt like an alien there, even as a kid]