At the risk of resuming a conversation that was decicedly off topic, I want to give this thread a bump and see if we are willing to flesh out the
other aspect of Mr. Lind's claims: that Sen. Obama is also wrong about Afghanistan.
Here's an interesting article to start us off:
Leaked memo: British envoy says mission in Afghanistan is "doomed"According to Mr Fitou, Sir Sherard told him on September 2 that the Nato-led military operation was making things worse. “The foreign forces are ensuring the survival of a regime which would collapse without them . . . They are slowing down and complicating an eventual exit from the crisis, which will probably be dramatic,” the Ambassador was quoted as saying.
Britain had no alternative to supporting the United States in Afghanistan, “but we should tell them that we want to be part of a winning strategy, not a losing one”, he was quoted as saying. “In the short term we should dissuade the American presidential candidates from getting more bogged down in Afghanistan . . . The American strategy is doomed to fail.”
Those of us who have been following the American strategy in Iraq can more clearly appreciate what "doomed to failure" means: hundreds of billions of dollars spent, thousands of Americans dead, hundreds of thousands of "others" dead, millions displaced, infrastructure destroyed, stature of US in key region obliterated, and our two Presidential candidates declaring "victory" and "success beyond our wildest dreams".
So what say you? Would an "enhanced" campaign (I shudder to say "surge") in Afghanistan result in a similar "victory"? Or is the British Ambassador right, and the dark-skinned American messiah wrong, as Mr. Lind suggested?
Remember Mr. Lind?
