<To give MY answer to your question, my opinions, not defending a thesis, I believe the American public will support getting it done, however (short of nukes) and getting out!! I don't think the American public would or should support sort of half-measures, pussyfooting around kinds of stuff.

In this age of “The Sci-Fi Channel” and “X-Files”? Of course the average American would support nuking a nation or two. I would be so -- Mad Max of us. Also, the doomsayers of the land would welcome a full nuke exchange, just to get rid of their credit card debt. That’s why the believers were out buying up all those generators back in 1999, only to dump them onto e-Bay in January of 2000.

And, I still believe that Afghanistan is a tough place to get out of. Easy to get into. It may be different with B-52s, but no one has ever beat 'em on their own territory.

Prior to 1969, nobody had ever been to the Moon before. Certainly no other invading force on the territory of Afghanistan ever made it.

This ain’t Vietnam. This is a desert war, with battlefields in mountainous regions that include deep, centuries-old cave dwellings and tunnels.

As for getting out of Afghanistan, that ain’t gonna happen for a few years yet:

* We’re setting up a new government (no, really, we are), one that includes a democratic system of elections.

* We are in to train the “new” Afghan militaries, which means we stick around a few cycles as advisors to our former students.

* We’re supporting commerce within Afghanistan, as well as international trade (which will very likely include a large piece of curious Americana exchange).

I’d say we’re in for the long-haul. The other countries we’ve “visited,” in a more-or-less advisor capacity, have governments that are already well established, particularly when compared against Afghanistan, but I dare say that Afghanistan has the potential to out-stride Georgia, the Philippines, and Yemen in development with comparative ease in the coming years. After all, Afghanistan is pretty much an abused, now adopted, orphan of the Middle East.

I think late last week Rumsfeld said he was going to declare victory over the weekend and largely break off the Gardez stuff as being unwinnable without more casualties than they thought the public would tolerate. I think the public would tolerate more casualties if they thought the casualties were buying something.

I would have to see that story.

And, if there are 10,000 dead Americans in Afghanistan, and still al Qeada and Taliban forces ambushing the isolated outpost, I think Americans would get discouraged. Given the terrain, tribal alliances and history, I believe that is more than possible. I don't know how you would ever "pacify" that country short of "relocating" every darned last one.

Until it happens, nothing is “more than possible,” and it hasn’t. We’ve had gangland style drive-bys that hit comparatively few Americans -- now about as many as have hit Americans (not service members, btw) worldwide in retaliation efforts.

The job is far from done, Bowser. We have hostages still in other nations to deal with -- or perhaps we should forget about the Taliban, the al Qui’da, and our citizens overseas who live daily at gunpoint, shackled and chained to trees.

We’ll see how it goes, but I believe it will be far easier than you imply. Bloody, yes, but not nearly as bloody as it could be -- because we won’t let them get us that way.

Diligence.

We’re quickly getting very professional at this sort of thing,
Dan