U.S. Back at Full War Footing in Afghanistan

My Husband is in Kandahar on The Operation Mountain Thrust. I just want to say to our troops along with my husband “Good Job guys, always reamember to keep your head up, we all need you back at home.” The next 90 days is going to be so hard on everyone, just always remember God’s watching over you. You guys don’t need to try to be heros because you already are a hero to all your family’s. Just go out there and keep yourself safe.

My prayers are with you all. I pray the Lord will lead, guide, protect, and show you the way. I pray this war will be over soon. Remember God sent His Son Jesus, for you to call on His name. Remember also, to pray for yourselves as you go from day-to-day.

why do they only have 3 months?

My prayers go out to the brave troops putting it all on the line for us here back at home. May god give you the strength and courage you need for your very difficult and sometimes thankless task.

To Tiffany — Your message to the troops brought tears to my eyes. I can’t determine if they are tears of happiness or sorrow, but I thing it is the former. God bless you for the major inconvenience and fear associated with the temporary loss of your husband. I am convinced that someone has to be the world’s policman, and unfortunately, that is logically a task that falls to the world’s superpower. Europe “blinked” when Hitler went on the initiative, and look at what happened. Most of Eurpope is now blinking. God bless America!

Bush should have finished the job in Afghanistan and never have attacked Iraq . Our young soldiers would have been safely home now with their families and loved ones. Over 2500 killed in Iraq in a war that is unjustified and could have been averted . Now we will lose more in Afghanistan due to his mis-use of our armed forces for his personal gain .

If we hadnt made a miscalculated detour into Iraq, and maintained full strength troop presence in Afghanistan where the REAL war on terror was occurring….the Taliban would never have regenerated. We probably would have captured or killed Bin Laden, Zwarhiri, and Mullah Omar!! But my hats off to our boys in Afghanistan fighting. Give ‘em hell boys. Stay alive and come back home to your friends and families!!!

This goes out to my little brother Gary from the Oregon National Guard, and all of the brave soldiers in Afganistan. Even though hardly anyone supports this “war”, we SUPPORT OUR TROOPS!!! You are all MY HEROES! Go safely. We love and miss you and await your safe return.

It’s been 1,737 days since George WMD Bush said he’d catch UBL-RIP ‘Dead or Alive!!!’ USA! USA!

Why “US troops”? Are there not contributions from other allies? There are, for example, about 2000 Canadian soldiers involved in operations in Afghanistan, and, I presume , similar numbers from other NATO countries.

May God watch over the troops and bring them home safely, mission(s) accomplished! Too bad that reporters like B. Ross just don’t “get it”…be diligent when you read his column…has ability to twist reality to satisfy his agenda.

The unfortunate reality is that these troops wouldn’t need to be on this operation and back on FULL WAR FOOTING if it weren’t for the misguided war in Iraq. I hope that no one else has to die b/c of one poor president’s mistakes.

My prayers are with our forces. May God keep them all safe as our sons and daughters are fighting for a just cause.
May God bless you all as he is on our side.

My hero and son will be 19 years old June 23rd. He is a soldier and has what is considered the most dangerous job in the military, Petroleum Delivery Specialist. This is what the soldiers call a suicide job. He is one brave and tough s.o.b. He is scheduled to leave for Iraq soon. I wish the United States of America had more people like him. Happy Birthday son, and god bless you.

How easy it is to pray and to bless. What nonsense. War doesn’t care who is being prayed for. War takes lives, and it rarely makes heroes, it makes victims. These are not “the fallen” they are the mutilated, the exploded to bits, the gunned down, the beheaded. Many of our young men are signing up for the military because they don’t have money to go to college, to be used and discarded by a President with an agenda that has nothing to do with defense. This war has nothing to do with patriotism, a concept that to many Americans is little more than flags on paper plates at July 4 picnics. Fantasies about God may comfort the believer, but they don’t help the soldier who right now, thousands of miles from home, is losing his life.

Now we know where part of the missing arms shipments from Bosnia went. Take the emphasis off of Iraq and put it back on Afganistan. The quail hunting buddy system!

remember the cia created osama,created sadam and gave him the raw material for biological and chemical weapons via bush senior and rumsfeld, remember the taliban was wheeling and dealing with bush two and kenny boy playing nice with cheney to get that pipe line through afganistan, remember imperial memories, remember twenty thousand wounded iraqi babies now pray to who,and what dogma for who and what cause save your tears theres more to come

“I don’t believe that God roots for either side in conflicts, whether they be football games or war.”
God bless that.

So many innocent mother’s and wives and family members that have written are so naive to think that these fine soldiers are fighting to keep us safe. They are fighting in Afghanistan to continue the the war that was not finished correctly. How loud can we say this. We support our troops. We are amazed that they can do what they are doing. HOWEVER, Bush sent these 11,000 fine soldiers to do a job in Afghanistan that requires 150,000 troops. He started a war with Iraq for oil and corporate profits and greed and assumed power. He took the war away from the Taliban to fight for oil and control of the middle east. He has fooled all you sweet people praying to God to keep your sons and husbands safe. If you want to keep them safe insist that they be brought home. We are now gearing up to fight the Taliban that we did not defeat 3 years ago. The men in charge have blundered and failed with your soldier’s lives. We are not fighting to keep America safe. We are fighting to keep the coporations rich. Pray to God if it makes you feel better. I will ask and plead for an end to this disasterous fight for money, power, control corporate greed and insanity..

America needs to wins minds and hearts of muslims if they are going to have any sense of security. America must stop actng double standards. Muslims are not like Germany nazis or Japan which invaded for other counry to build their empire. Muslims are not tryng to invade USA. America invaded muslim countries killing women and children.

We are making a comeback? I wasn’t aware that we left.

Try not to kill another Pat Tillman. If God is omnipotent then I must conclude God has nothing to do with the warring among men anywhere. Jesus had more to do with the downtrodden and poor. Why bring them into this debacle? This should have been wrapped long ago before we never went into Iraq. Once again the President exercises his will and fails to make the facts fit. It’s so hopeless, people with kin other there are left with only the extremes of prayer and religion as a resolve. One can’t blame them. NO ONE wants to loose a loved anywhere, anytime, any country, any religion, any nationality. All this is about three men and their personal agendas with each other – George W. Bush, Saddam, and bin Laden. They all go way back, long before 911, and the two Bush presidencies. If you check your historical facts – father Bush helped put both Saddam and bin Landin in power back in the early 1980′s when he was with the CIA. Facts that are now conveniently never mentioned. Why 90 days? Because the boat is getting ready to slip off the trailer and no slogan from the White House or Republican Party will ever get it back on. Pray indeed. This is no Super Bowl or action movie. American naivety bowls me over. You’d conclude by some of thes post we were the only heavenly sanctioned people on the planet. Fact is – it’s our sad, evasive leadership and karma catching us.

Every beating heart in America wants all our soldiers home safe as soon as events support such. Also, none of us question a soldiers resolve, bravery, and heart.
Only the ilk of Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld would put political posturing at the front of our international military missions. Why esle would they create an aura of you can’t ask, but we assure you it’s legal, noble, and blessed.

I’m sad to see many of my fellow country men and women still using the American flag as a blindfold. The wars in Afghanistan and Iraq aren’t some folksy undertaking. God, if there is one, is obviously staying out of this (or else He has some explaining to do to the families of over 2,500 US service man and women and countless thousands of Iraqis.) The Bush administration lied to the American people and started a war for their own selfish reasons and warped ideologies. They should have focused on Afghanistan, but instead they went charging into Iraq without a plan or a clue. It’s something this nation will have to pay for for many, many years to come.

Poor Tiffany, I do feel for her personal loss at the moment, however, the point is this. America are the aggressive invaders, they are the Imperial Guards of Star Wars, the bad guys, not the good guys. Tiffany, you should be praying for an epiphany for GW Bush and the rest of America, the epiphany where they realise the immense harm their arrogange, anger and unChristian attitudes have caused. That is they way to pray for your husband’s life, and for the life of all those innocent Afghani civilians that will be obliterated by the so-called “pin-point” strikes of American bombs.
David, Perth, Western Australia

If there were a god, our sons and daughters would not be fighting and dying in Iraq for no reason.

My daughter emailed me about the lock down do to the increasing fighting. This is effecting all of Afgan even the part that the US controls. Now that Bush changed the UN policy and now Bush said it’s legal to torture and kill. Bush is a murder and so is Cheney/Rummy. All should be charged with war/invasion crimes against humanity. These guys are worse then Saddam. Those three beautifull GI’s lost their lives because of the Bush Administration.

The Bushies allowed the Taliban to prosper and armed themselves, via the sale of heroin. Some of which I am sure is being consumed right here on the streets of the U.S.
This stuff just has to be planned, it’s too surreal.

Where is the Bush strategy for victory? Grinding the ax isnt a plan. This war effort needs smarter leadership if we are to get out of there with our dignity intact.

Why is anyone surprised? My heart goes out to the troops in an almost forgotten war. Just when they were about to win Afghanistan, the most corrupt administration in U.S. History decided to open a can of quagmmire in Iraq. The rest is not yet history.

Why don’t we understand the following:
- US can’t be police of this world
- US expects to Kill but get themselves saved
- US is still an Invader in Afghanistan AF & Iraq IQ
- US Still loves puppets as leaders of NEWLY elected Governemens AF & IQ
- US considers own way of democracy is the ONLY RIGHT way of democracy
By the way – God blesses only those – who trust in God

Just remember who started this 9/11 thing. You lot proudly boast that you killed over a million iraqi children with your no food / no oil sanctions in Iraq during the 90s’. And you pretend you are the innocent. Yes, Judgement Day’s a comin’.

Question: Who is responsible for the terrorist attacks of
September 11, 2001 ?
A) Saddam Hussein
B) Usama Bin Laden
C) The Project for the New American Century
D) None of the above
WAIT! Before selecting your answer, please read the
following DOCUMENTED quotes:
1. “We’ve had NO EVIDENCE that Saddam Hussein was
involved with the September the 11th” President George W.
Bush 9/17/03
2. “The reason why 9/11 is not mentioned on Usama Bin
Laden’s Most Wanted Page is because the FBI has NO HARD
EVIDENCE connecting Bin Laden to 9/11″ Rex Tomb (Chief of
Investigative Publicity for the FBI) 6/5/06
3. “The process of transformation, even if it brings
revolutionary change, is likely to be a long one, absent some
catastrophic and catalyzing event – like a NEW PEARL HARBOR”
The Project for a New American Century (page 51 of their
document Rebuilding America’s Defenses) September 2000

Lest we forget, Operation Mountain Thrust includes about 2,400 Canadian combat troops, as well as another 2,400 British combat troops, as well as others. It’s interesting that this never gets much mention in the American media. The effort in Afghanistan is truly a coalition. The Canadian Government recently voted to extend its commitment to the effort in Afghanistan.

Why are we fighting in Afganhistan or Iraq? Most of the 9/11 hijackers were from Saudi Arabia. It’s like attacking Finland instead of Japan after Pearl Harbor. This problem stems from US support for represive oil powered dictators. Incredible miscalculations by Bush and Cheney. I don’t think so. You don’t attack the real problem when the real problem controls your energy supply.

In September 2001, the man-child in the Oval Office said he was going to “smoke em out and git em” (Osama bin Forgotten). In March 2002 that same man-child said “I dont know where he (OBL) is. I just dont spend that much time on him.” Perhaps if the man-child and his flakes had spent time smoking out and gittin instead of landing on the deck of ships offshore from San Diego Harbour we wouldn’t be in a situation where the Taliban is “back.” However given the man-child’s past economic (read: oil) dealings with the Taliban, he’s probably glad they are back. More opportunities to build more oil pipelines through Afghanistan. Of course only after OBL is smoked out and gotten. I used to believe in the tooth fairy also.

I’m Italian and I’m proud of all the soldiers involved in the War on Terror. Keep up your good job guys!!

For anyone who would like to read a document on Supporting the War in Iraq that I wrote in college: please email me. PLEASE, for those who are against the war: open your minds and give the time to read the legitmate and factual side that the media will never broadcast!

How do we know when we’ve won? What will we have won? How many deaths are too many? Will we be there and if Iraq forever losing 2 or 3 soldiers every day? Meanwhile, the politicians who start these wars get rich from war profiteering and no one in their families go off to die. Make them sign up first.

I suggest everyone join me in moving to another country because Bush is ruining America? When did the gov’t stop being run by the people??? Right now it seems its being run by a bunch of idiots who want money and power, or have it and want to use it. The world still doesnt know the truth about 9/11, the government knew a lot more about it than they are saying, in fact I think they planned every minute of the horrifying day. Think I’m crazy? no just go research it, it’ll be labeled 911 conspiracy theories, but it should be labeled TRUTH. Our crappy gov’t is the reason why we’re losing more and more young men every day while we are in turn making more and more enemies in our endless effort to be Team America World Police. Viva el Mexico!!! Cmon everyone off to Mexico, let all them come here and we’ll go there, we’ll trade countries let the mexicans take care of our problems, maybe theyll be able to help

Why did Bush “cut-and-run” in Afghanistan, moving our forces to Iraq (which WAS irrelevant to the war on terror) and leaving only a nominal complement of troops in Afghanistan? We have watched helplessly as all of our military’s earlier efforts and accomplishments in Afghanistan dissolved. Bush and company took their eye off the ball, there is no denying that. Now we have serious problems in Afghanistan that could have been taken care of years ago. So we see that decisions made in the voting booth (and in the voting machine software, so it would seem) are important and should be made with more reflection and care than was evident in the past two elections.

Although some of the comments written here angers me beyound belief, I just want to say THANK YOU to my son and his fellow service men and women for the continued right for me and the others that have written here to speak our minds. Without those that believe this strongly in our freedoms, this would not be allowed and some of us would not see the light of day tomorrow for some of the things we’ve said. Only in America can we feel this safe, and Our Boys and Girls in Uniform are the reason why.
Be safe our heros, we await your return to the safty of our loving arms!

To the American Solder I wish Gods speed in getting you all back home.
It is still hell, but a slightly better kind of hell with UN support and allied help in the fighting.

This looks to me to be a thinly disguised ramp-up for flanking into Iran. But, hey, I just spent 6 years as an officer in the marines so I probably have no idea what I’m talking about. Believe your TV. The reason we were in Iraq in the first place was to acquire a strategic staging area and and secure the oilfields. The invasion of Iran was planned before we ever went into Afghanistan or Iraq. It is a done deal. Even so, my heart goes out to our troops. They are just following orders to the best of their ability. I just wish Americans at home would wake up!

Folks:
During the Soviet -Afghan War, the Soviet people had the same type of thinking and mind-set which is developing in the U.S.
But, here are some realities:
Our soldiers are no less or no more than the high tech army the Soviets sent to Afghanistan.
A guerilla war waged by such a conventional high tech force is un-winnable in Afghanistan. The Soviet tried it, the British tried it, and if you read the 5000 years history of Afganistan, a thousand others, including the Mongol hordes of Tamerlane tried it.
High tech conventional warfare (even with special forces) cannot be won against a determined low tech guerilla enemy. Low tech guerilla warfare is based on the cunning and versatility of the human mind and intuition, which high tech weaponary cannot fathom and creates a false sense of security amongst it’s users.
Afghanistan is worse than Vietnam,if we or our allies stay there for the long haul, it will fester like a wound for the next 50 to 100 years.
In Afghanistan, it is impossible to tell, who is a friend or foe, because they are the same.
Mr.Karzai is nothing but the Mayor of Kabul, who blames his neighbors for his own frailities. Remember Mr.Thieu and Mr.Ky of Vietnam era, who blamed Cambodia and Laos for their own debacles and poor governance and ineptitude. He would be better off running his restaurant in Baltimore, a cook does’nt a warrior make.
In the Afghan terrain a well trained sharp shooter can keep a battalion at bay.
The first sound an Afghan baby hears is a rifle shot, which is part of birthing ceremony in Pushtoon tribes. A Pushtoon child grows-up to be a guerrila and can live off lentills and a canteen of water for days in the high mountains. the Soviets realized it to their chagrin.
Temperatures soar up to 122 F in parts of Afghanistan with blistering dust laden winds. This fine dust can penetrate every open orifice in the human body and is worse than any such event in the Mojave.
Afghans are masters of treachery and double cross.
Mark my words folks, this is an endless unwinnable war. The sooner, we leave this God forsaken place, the more precious lives will be saved.
And I have news, for those who invoke God in protecting our own, the treacherous mullas also think of themselves as having God on their side. So, who is right? Time will tell!
Having lived through Vietnam, I know that our warrior instincts will prevail over our better judgement. But, may be we have become wiser for our own good.
And yes, like the Domino Theory during the Vietnam War, all justifications for this unwinnable war will prove to be wrong.
It is a wrong war, at the wrong time, and in a wrong place and with the wrong people.
Afghanistan is a lawless, tribal society, which will remain so for the next 1000 years. The sooner we understand that the better off we will be. As for OBL and his ilk, he is probably dead as some leaders like Mr.Musharraf have suggested. The likelihood of Taliban ever coming back (without external backing like Irans or Russias) has a snowballs chance in hell. So there..
Mike Bax

For the soldier sitting in the middle east on his computer posting his comment, following orders is what you do. You signed up for it, that’s your belief that what you’re doing is right. For the 99% who you say support you troops being there? Who’s pole are you following? Or did you do your own ground work? And is it just a small possibility they want to keep your there because they feel just a little more protected now that you’re there, and if you leave they have a 90% chance of being thrown back into a tyranical gov’t again? Also, there are a few in gov’t who want to reinstate a draft. And there is a large number of troops that signed up for the bonuses, because they didn’t have anywhere else to go. It wasn’t out of want, it was out of necessity to survive here, in the USA no less. If they didn’t, they’d be the same people you’d probably see in the streets of New York asking to work for food. The reality is we’re fighting the war with the wrong people, we should be fighting against the people that are taking our freedom, those people are the corrupt officials in our own gov’t. I do support the troops, I hope they survive, I hope they have the chance to come back to see their friends and families again. I don’t wish anything bad to happen upon anybody. And those who say it’s foolish, you can’t support the troops without supporting the war, they need to get slapped upside the head. Life is a precious thing, and it’s being wasted to the full extent in this war. Oil, from the blood of innocence. It kills our lands, it kills our seas, it kills our people. We are of but a single animal among this earth, and we are single handedly destroying everything like nothing else could ever contemplate, and it include destroying ourselves, because of war, greed, corruption.
The people of the middle east has been at war for thousands of years. It has never stopped, and we can never expect to stop it. The blood has been passed down generation to generation. The mindset, the killing, everything. Nobody wants it, but it’s going to happen. For the few of those that have developed the mind, the want, the corruption, the greed. It’s a neverending cycle, because we let it be. This type of evil will never go away, because it is something that can never be killed. As one falls, many rise. It’s a flaw of man, we have become a powerful creature, we have been given the power to discern right from wrong. We have been given the power of thought, conscience, love. But we also have hate, anger, deception. Who is right, who is wrong? What makes it right? What makes it wrong? If another race of being saw us, is studying us, what do you think they’ll think of us? A future Earth, thousands of years from now, uncover artifacts of our age, or a student studying the life of America in the 20th and 21st century, what do you think he’ll be wondering about us?
We have the power to fix things, but the sad fact is that nobody really wants to. Nobody can, rights are being taken away slowly, and we keep living our lives because it’s all we can do. We don’t have time to worry about it, we have to work, we have to feed our own families. We don’t have the funds to go against this gov’t, to question what it’s doing, to take our rights and freedoms back. Take a minute, thing about what you do day to day. Think about what the soldiers do day to day, think about what the Afghani do day to day. Is it really all that different? We all live, we all try to survive to the next day. We think we are doing what’s right, for ourselves, for our friends, for our family.

Now that the FBI has unequivically stated that they have no direct evidence of bin Ladens involvement in 911, what is the justification for the preemptive attack on Afghanistan and Iraq, spearheaded by CIA, backed by USAF and a few Special Forces? al Quaeda, my patootie.
It sure looks like interrogation time for the current administration…..fess up boys and girls! How ya gonna justify three plus years of plunder and loot with a little shock and awe along the way?

The tape of Bin Laden claiming responsibility for 9/11 is bogus. It was made by the CIA. The Military Industrial Complex that Dwight D Eisenhower warned us all about, has taken control of the US government.

I hope America kicks in Afganistan. Rid the world of this plague guys, unleash the nukes! Just look at the response opf the gear boxes above me here. This is waht the world needs to get rid of!

Do you all thik that there is a real democracy in USA . USA has a 20% people support in Afghanistan , can USA kill 80% to make the GOVT of 20,s , the day (after 3 years or 30 years )USA will leave afghanistan , how many US and allies army would die even Policy maker calcualte this , when US left what will be in Afghanistan Christianity ? Wealth ? all people with new minds ? new religion ,?
nothing nothing would be change
a good saying
no human being never
1-Forget his insult
2-leave his land
3-leave his religion
good bye

My son was ambushed during his patrol on Friday, Aug. 4 in a very remote area of Afghanistan. He is now at Walter Reed with a gunshot to his back and currently paralyzed.We are hoping with rehab he will have a full recovery. I know now that we must continue to fight overthere, because this fight could wind up over here. Pray for those brave and dedicatied soldiers and families.

Afghanistan: Same war, different players
gwynne dyer
Editorial – Wednesday, July 12, 2006 @ 09:00
1839, 1878, 1979, 2001: Four foreign invasions of Afghanistan in less than 200 years.
The first two were British, and unashamedly imperialist. The third was Soviet, and the invaders said they were there to defend socialism and help Afghanistan become a modern, prosperous state.
The last was American, and the invaders said they were there to bring democracy and help Afghanistan become a modern, prosperous state. But all four invasions were doomed to fail (although the last still has some time to run).
When Britain deployed 3,300 troops to Helmand province early last month, then Defence Secretary John Reid said: “We hope we will leave Afghanistan without firing a single shot.”
But six British soldiers have been killed in combat since then, and the new Defence Minister, Des Browne, announced on Monday that the British force is being increased by another 900 soldiers to cope with “unexpected” resistance.
The story is the same across southern Afghanistan. The Canadian army has lost six soldiers killed in action in Kandahar province since late April, and may soon face the same choice between reinforcing its troops or pulling them back, because the American combat troops in the vicinity are leaving at the end of this month. The U.S. forces are pulling out just in time.
A country that has been invaded four times in less than two centuries is bound to know a couple of things about dealing with foreign conquerors.
The first thing Afghans have learned is never to trust them, no matter how pure they say their intentions are. There are probably no more xenophobic people in the world than the Afghans, and they have earned the right to be so.
If there was ever a window of opportunity for the current crop of invaders to convince Afghans that this time is different, it closed some time ago.
The other thing Afghans know is how to deal with invaders. They will always be richer and better armed, so let them occupy the country.
Don’t try to hold the cities; fade back into the mountains. Take a couple of years to regroup and set up your supply lies (mostly across the border from Pakistan, this time), and then start the guerilla war in earnest.
Ambush, harass and bleed the foreigners for as long as it takes.
Eventually they will cut their losses and go home.
It has worked every time, and it is going to work again. Des Browne remarked plaintively last week that “the very act of (British) deployment into the south has energised opposition.” But the reality is that the rural areas of Helmand province, like most of the Pashto-speaking provinces of the south and south-east, have been under the effective control of the resistance for several years.
The arrival of foreign troops in these areas simply gives the insurgents targets to attack.
The end-game is beginning even in Kabul. Hamid Karzai, the West’s chosen leader for Afghanistan, is now starting to make deals with the forces that will hold his life in their hands once the foreigners leave: the warlords and drug barons.
In April, he dropped many candidates who had been approved by the “coalition” powers from a list of new provincial police chiefs, and substituted the names of known gangsters and criminals who work for the local warlords.
He will also have to talk to the Taleban before long.
The “Taleban” that Western troops are now fighting in Afghanistan is more inclusive than the narrow band of fanatics who imposed order on the country in 1996 after seven years of civil war.
The current Afghan resistance movement includes farmers trying to protect their poppy-fields, nationalists furious at the foreign presence, young men who just want to show that they are as brave as previous generations of Afghans – the usual grab-bag of motives that fuels any national resistance movement.
Nor is the regime that will eventually emerge in Kabul after the foreigners have gone home likely to resemble the old Taleban, a Pakistani-backed and almost entirely Pashto-speaking organisation.
The foreign invasion overthrew the long domination of the Pashto-speakers in Afghanistan (about 40 per cent of the population), and it is most unlikely that Tajiks, Hazaras, Uzbeks, and Turkmen will simply accept that domination again.
Their own warlords will have to have a share of the power, too, and even Karzai might find a role.
Post-occupation Afghanistan would certainly live under strict Islamic law, but there is no reason to believe it would export Islamist revolution of the al-Qaeda brand.
Even the old Taleban regime never did that; it gave hospitality to Osama bin Laden and his gang, but it almost certainly had no knowledge of his plans for 9/11, and on other issues it was often open to Western pressure.
In 2001, for example, it shut down the whole heroin industry in Afghanistan, simply by shooting enough poppy-farmers to frighten the rest into obedience.
Afghanistan will not be left to its own devices until after the people who ordered the invasion leave office: presumably next year for Tony Blair, and January, 2009 for George W. Bush.
There is time for lots of killing yet. But Afghanistan stands a reasonable chance of sorting itself out once the Western armies leave.
Gwynne Dyer is a London-based independent journalist whose articles are published in 45 countries.