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Politics : Sharks in the Septic Tank -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: TimF who wrote (42110)	1/9/2002 1:11:29 PM
From: Lane3	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 82486

He seems to think we should have had a massive number of soldiers on the ground. Of course the logistics of this would have been enormously difficult. I've long been following this reluctance we have to take casualties. I has seemed to me that, since Viet Nam, we've taken military action with one hand tied behind our backs because of fear that public opinion would turn at the first sign of body bags. I've always considered war a last resort and haven't agreed with any war my country has engaged during my adult life until this one. But I always thought that if we were going to fight, we should be prepared to do what it takes to win. I've cut recent Presidents some slack in their lack of decisive action or follow through because I recognized what they were facing with public opinion on casualties. I recall discussion on this thread in September that that particular paradigm had changed, that after 9-11 we would no longer be so squeamish that we would accept no casualties. I'm wondering lately if that old arm isn't still tied behind our back, after all. Perhaps you're right that it would have taken too long to get enough soldiers in place to stop the bad guys from making it to Pakistan. Of course, we could have waited to start the war until they were in place, had we chosen to. Perhaps the Taliban were just defeated faster than we thought. Or no one anticipated the run to Pakistan. Or the local commanders not acceding to our wishes with regard to Taliban prisoners. Or we were mostly concerned about looking like an invading army. I don't know. It seems clear, though, that we made a conscious choice to not use our own ground troops and that there has been a price to pay for that decision in terms of success. I won't presume to second guess those decisions. I just hope that the decision criteria didn't rest unduly on our desire to get our troops out of there scott free. That would not be encouraging going forward. I want the paradigm shift to stick. If we're going to fight a war, then we should fight to win. Karen