There are 17,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan, a number that may drop to 13,000, according to recent Pentagon testimony.
Contrast that with Iraq and troop level..
I'm well aware of the difference. Now make an actual point based on it? Is it your argument that we should have poured 140,000 soldiers in to Afghanistan?
Full attention mean IMHO, lots more troop when it was warranted
How many more, and what, in your opinion, would the additional soldiers have accomplished?
As things stand, I am not sure US even coughed up any serious money to rebuild Afghanistan.
Fairly serious money, but then rebuilding a country is expensive. Certainly most of the effort will have to come from the Afghanis themselves, as is almost always the case.
Unless of course one feels that thousands of death
Many thousands were killed by Saddam.
Iraq coming under Iran influence
Those who claim this is happening are at the very least exaggerating the issue. The majority of Iraqi Shia don't want to be ruled from Tehran or otherwise dominated by Iran. Even many Iranians are turning away from supporting the mullocracy.
Oh incidentally, bad as Saddam was and unhappy as even the Shias were, there was no one blowing them self up or any one else for that matter..
Yes to the extent that suicide bombing is a somewhat rational act, it makes sense that it is less likely to be used against Saddam who was far less likely to be influenced by it. The US military, probably even the Iraqi government's military, can't be defeated by it in a tactical sense but the hope is to weaken morale and destroy support. That would be harder to pull off against Saddam. It would have been very hard for Iraqis to have defeated Saddam's Republican Guard (if there was even a chance of the Republican Guard being defeated the regular army probably would already have been a minor factor), but it was more possible than a strictly military defeat of the US army. But Saddam could continue with his regime even if there had been a suicide bombing campaign (and would be prone to do things like leveling the town where the bombers relatives lived). While with the US there is at least a hope among those who oppose us that the suicide bombers could eventually cause us to pull out, and while we can reign down a lot of damage on our enemies, no one fears us launching a concerted campaign to wipe out whole clans if some of their members start a bombing campaign.
Tim |
