W = pass for Obama? Seriously could you give a date when Obama in effect becomes President (meaning his course of actions is something he can be held accountable for?)

Great drink by the way, OWS

Well there is no way to tell what would have become of Afghanistan had we not invaded after 9/11, if it would've been plotting/training ground for more attacks or not.

As for Iraq, yeah that was definitely a mistake with hindsight. At the time we had a dictator with a history of aggression, and had openly defied UN requirements for nuclear inspections and such, and even boasted of nuclear achievments, and in the afterglow of 9/11 it seemed like a much more pressing issue (that is, if you don't subscribe to the belief that we had been eyeing Iraq since the first day President Bush took office).

So was it good we invaded Afghanistan, yes I think so and I support President Obama's willingness to follow through with this war. As for Iraq, that was a mistake, obviously.

I don't think we should or even good pull out 80% of troops from either country in under 2 years without serious repercussions. And I'm saying this as an Afghan veteran set to go back in 2011, not as a chickenhawk.

Libertarian, aren't you in Afghanistan right now? I was in Kabul last year for a decent amount of time at HQ ISAF. If you ever stroll through there I'd be interested to hear your take.

Ya Danni I wouldn't take offense to that at all, you were proven right, of course.

I do believe that a premature exit from Afghanistan would be bad and we need to win there, and as Van Halen would say, Right Now.

My definition of a 'win' by the way would be a strong government that would be able to fight Taliban and other extremists on their own, or with technological support from the US.

I also think that we could have bases in Iraq and Afghanistan like we kept bases in South Korea, just sort of chilling out for decades.

I think President Obama will approve a surge of some type and hopefully work his overseas magic and get NATO more involved, for what thats worth.

Cool man. I'll be in Baghdad (tentatively) this summer. Maybe I'll see you there.

What's your solution, Tickyul? Do you think an immediate withdrawal is in order or a phased withdrawal?

Do you see any negatives if we could overnight abandon Afghanistan, or do you think the positives would far outweigh any negatives?

Would you support 15k troops just manning 3 bases to assist the Government (Kandahar, Bagram, Kabul)

Whats the best intelligence available? The CIA that botched Iraq?

The minute your strikeforce hit a country (say Iran) you would get all the criticism/blowback Bush got.

You would support an American strikeforce that would simply enter countries then eliminate targets at will?

I do agree that babysitting is a huge problem we get ourselves into.

Ticky - I'm all for a leaner military (using heavy special ops) for future events. I do believe that what we have goin on in Afghan and Iraq will require a large force for a few more years to wind down before we could go for that strategy.

It would be tight to have had a small force just whipe out Al Queda's (however its spelled nowadays) command structure. Would that be seen as assassination? If so, we should just get in the assassination game or rename it so high value target elimination or something.

Hag if we can't win right now (assuming that means we just completely lose and pull out completely) then we just have to rely on our intel to find out when they are trying to hit us next and do our best to pre-emptively hit them.

I don't believe we would be too successful at that in the long run, but if we can keep the battlefield over there and be successful, it will show resolve on our part that the enemy can't run the clock out on us.

Who knows though, we don't have hindsight on our side.

The world cannot afford the price that will come due if Afghanistan slides back into chaos or al Qaeda operates unchecked.

-President Obama, March 2009

I didn't vote for him, but this was always something I liked about his foreign policy, and I believe he will follow through with his statements on not prematurely leaving Afghanistan.

Naw I'm home now. I won't go back there until 2011, I wonder how different it'll be from 2008.

As for working with Afghanis every Friday I would go out to the bazaar and buy crap from them, they are the friendliest people (even while trying to gather intel). I even learned some Farsi to try to show I gave a crap, as opposed to a few US guys who were complete assholes to the locals.

The people who have jobs on base love it, it's comparable to an upper middle class pay for over there, so we are temporarily giving them economic resources so they temporarily like us. Who knows how much of that good will can remain after we leave though.

Iraqi I picture something like bases in South Korea, just kinda chilling out. We could be there for 50 years in a very limited capacity. We could stay at Bagram and keep using predator drones (think of how sweet they will be in just 20 years) and not patrolling, just sort of saying if you want to attack us, we're right here, you don't have to come to America to do so.

So what I have in mind is staying there for my lifetime, but not at the levels we are at now and not patrolling the country on foot.

I would like to know what a majority of military leaders / generals and even historians think, what kind of solution they would subscribe to.

Yeah some Predators only carry a handful of hellfire missiles so I don't know how effective that would be, wouldn't hurt to try. Someday we'll have some badass Predators that can carry a ton of shit. We could also launch GPS guided missiles from far away, I don't know why we wouldn't already have tried to blow up their passes.

Does this mean that McCain's 100 years war should become Obama's 100 years war if "necessary"?

I believe that easily we could spend 100 years there (if our country doesn't go bankrupt before then!), but definitely not in the same role we are there today. I agree with you on that point. Maybe like 10,000 soldiers at a few bases? Not patrolling streets but gathering intel, launching predators / other cool stuff we have in the future from Bagram.

It's my belief that this is what McCain alluded to, we can't keep doing what we are doing now for another 100 years, but we could certainly do a smaller scaled operation, in my opinion.

Am I right to think that the course of action you would like to see is a withdrawal starting soon (this year?) and we would be out of there by the end of, say 2010/11, and trying to help the Afghan government politically? If that's the case its certainly better than spending 100 years fumbling around there. Whatever decision President Obama makes its up to him and the President after to stick with it, we can't be wishy washy about this stuff.

Timex, yeah the summer is definitely when there are more troops in contact. They are fair weather fighters, which I would be too, it gets cold there. I don't know about blowing up the hiding spots.

Youd have to talk to an intel guy about that, but good luck getting info from him, haha.

oh and what I meant by 100 years fumbling around there. I would define fumbling around as keeping 30,000 - 40,000 troops roaming the countryside.

Yeah I can definitely understand them not trusting a foreign backed government. Well, whatever happens happens and I won't be held accountable, which the President doesn't have the luxury of. I'm sure whatever decision he makes will be seen as wrong by those who oppose him and justified as the best of all scenarios by those who support him, and the same will be said for the next guy to be President.

It's kind of a downer.

As for me, I'm on my way to AmeriStar in St Louis for a day/night of gambling!