Hey AK, pal, dont forget, our big man in the oval office, good old GWB and his dad are best buddies with old Osamas family. Who is running this great country? Our enemys friends!

"Hey AK, pal, dont forget, our big man in the oval office, good old GWB and his dad are best buddies with old Osamas family. Who is running this great country? Our enemys friends!" The above fable has been debunked so many times that its gettting rather old. OBL and his 'family' are not the same thing -- I don't expect you would condemn someones entire family when a single person in that family goes bad. Now if the rest of OBLs extended family (the same family that has publically disavowed and disowned OBL, I might add) are indeed murderous bast@#ds and we somehow missed that, then please by all means show us evidence of this, otherwise your statement is seriously flawed and is nothing more than a red herring. NewGuy

"well, not that the americans did a bad job. but the french would talk about it and plan for a long time. you know how they are " Ah...I misunderstood the intent of your post, my apologies. While the French have done some good things without undue delay in the war on terror, I would have to agree with you that the French police system sometimes rather poorly in cases involving terrorism not committed against the French. I dont worry about the French government being 'quick on the trigger' in resorting to nukes: as much as I like to point out the foibles of the French government in their politics and foreign policy I do not believe they are going act rashly when it comes to the possible use of nuclear weapons. NewGuy

"if you don't think its weird that the bushes and binladens are buddies, thats your right." I certainly would not call them 'buddies': from what I have researched on this the Bin Laden company group (one of the larger companies in Saudia Arabia) and the Bush's were connected via secondary business/enterprises and the families are not 'close friends' or anything of the kind. I hope you are not getting this from Michael Moores grossly distorted and inaccurate F911 video, because if so you are being mislead, and I would be happy to show you links to crediable evidence that clearly shows the distortions (and outright falsehoods in a couple of instances) that Moore made in that 'film' in this regard. Take care, NewGuy

new guy, to elaborate, both the french and the americans have their plus and minuses. the french tend to intellectualize their problems and discuss them a lot. this means they thoroughly understand the issue but may lead to inactivity due to time wasted in discussion. the americans on the other hand like things simple and clear-cut. they then act without delay. it depends on the situation. if the situation is clear cut, obviously the americans have the edge. if the situation is complex, the french have the edge. in afghanistan i'm not sure that the americans did the right thing. it may hve been a pyrrhic victory. bin laden wasn't captured and let's face it: who wants to control afghanistan? i'm still of the opinion that a special forces team could have been inserted, killed the taliban leaders and bin laden, without having to indulge in 'nation building'. perhaps the french way would have been better in afghanistan. but time will tell. the position may be strategic if the US decides to expand the war. it depends what bush has up his sleeve.

Killing the leaders wouldn't have done much good. If you simply go in, kill them, and leave, you've done basically nothing but facilitate the rise of the next tinpot dictator. You got to go in and pull the weeds out by the roots, then make sure they don't grow anymore.

"i'm still of the opinion that a special forces team could have been inserted, killed the taliban leaders and bin laden, without having to indulge in 'nation building'." Even if possible (which, having researched that confict quite a bit, I am certain it was not) this does nothing to disrupt the middle and lower ranks of Taliban leadership, to say nothing about the rank-and-file that supported them. The only sure way to remove the Taliban from power was to either erase Afghanistan from the planet (which I assume you would not advocate), or to go in with substantial force and use the help of those who opposed the Taliban as your allies, which is exactly what we did. The fact that we have not completely build a 'new nation' in less than 4 years is nothing for may nation or its leaders to be ashamed of: anyone who is both honest and knowledgeable will tell you it is going to take more than a couple of years to get a stable and lasting change in Afghanistan, which the Bush administration is committed to and I believe will see to the end (those of the far left in my nation notwithstanding). NewGuy

buddy, be honest. do you really want to re-build afghanistan? do americans? it's quite a commitment. it's more than setting up a few elections. the place is run by tribal warlords. these are people that have never gone through the renaissance, the reformation, etc. in fact, it's not even fair to call them medieval. i don't know how to term it: they are pre-medieval. nothing can break their tribal loyalties and structures. and in the big picture ... why bother moulding a nation of people that don't want anything other than to be exactly what they are. you know what i mean? it's a lot of effort... with little chance of success.

did you get the taliban though? the problem is, as i mentioned in my topic "THe Map is not the Territory", the roots of the taliban are not in afghanistan but in pakistan. afghanistan was only the visible manifestation of the taliban. the taliban were, to a great extent, the creation of the pakistan gov't. they were funded and created by pakistan and the fact that the US can't 'pull out the weeds' because of political considerations means that they will keep re-emerging. that's why a special forces strike would have been a better option, in my opinion. unless you have a plan for taking out the madrases in pakistan and their staging bases in the mountains on the border...

sorry, i re-read my post and it seems a bit too arrogant. sorry about that. your points were good, what i wrote is just my humble opinion :)