ibbit, I agree that to win in Afghanistan looks difficult - but that's only if you look at it from the "old" perspective of wars being limited .. having an entry and an exit.

This war has no exit .. that's the point that people find difficult, it is probably going to now forever worldwide. It has nothing to do with the historical troubles previously in Afghanistan.

It's a holy Islamic war against the west, sure the 9/11 terrorists may have been from various other countries, but they were part of Al Quaida ("the base", so there it is hazza, wherever they are is "the base", when you find them, you have found "the base") Bin Laden in a Saud, so what, terrorists hang out where they can get some relative peace and quiet to regroup, train, and plan .. that's what the Taliban gave them.

You might not like to hear that, but that's what it is .. Bin Laden has said many times that this is a war against the great satan and its allies (us)

Just as in other parts of the middle east, if the people see you are weak, and negotiating is seen as weak, they will kill you. Lying in negotiations to infidels, is not a crime nor a moral issue for them after all, their holy books demands you kill infidels any way you can.

They are not moderates, they are extremists.

If we pull out of Afghanistan, they have won.

If we leave, it will not be over, and next time we engage, and we will, we will have to learn the skills again.

This is not a force on force war, it is asymmetric, force against guerrillas, and whatever the historical context is, we cannot afford to leave or lose this one.

In fact, over time we need to expand it, take out all of Pakistan that is not ruled by government, Kashmir etc, roll them up, if it takes 100 years, so be it.

Dear rpg,

Ideologies and religions change with time. George Kennan, a US cold war theorist, suggested containment rather than confrontation with the Soviet Union. US forces never directly engaged Soviet forces although both Soviet and US forces engaged surrogates of their opponent. Finally, the Cold War was over because the Soviet Union imploded. There was more and more dissatisfaction with communism until the Soviet people got rid of it.

The same can be true of Islam. Modernity and the ideas of a free society are attractive. We need no direct confrontation. We can keep up the pressure by exposing them to our ideas including the separation of religion and state. I was friendly with a Palestinian family in Brisbane. Some Jihadists approached the young men. They were not at all interested. It seemed nonsense to them.

Rather than a continuing confrontation just contain them and expose them to our ideas. Meanwhile get out of Afghanistan and Iraq.

david f, yes, tolerating intolerance has certainly worked well hasn't it .. oh wait

Dear rpg,

I didn't advocate tolerating intolerance at all. I advocate not invading countries whose attitudes don't agree with ours and slaughtering the people there as we have been doing. To you that seems tolerating intolerance. Oh, well. If many have the attitude you have we will continue to waste our substance, our strength and be hated.

david f, that's just emotive language, I don't advocate invading countries to "slaughter" the population, you have verballed me, but I'm used to it on this forum.

So are you saying the only way to defeat terrorists is to make friends and sit down and be nice to them .. they'll kill you, you're soft and deserve no respect if that's your behavior, in their way of life.

They only respect strong men, look at the warlords, their leaders, none of them tolerate weakness for a second.

We can't just overlay our western ideals of negotiation on them, they have a holy book that tells them they are the chosen ones, that we are infidel .. yet it must irritate them to realize we have all the good stuff and they have mud huts .. so much for being the chosen ones.

Mostly I think they turn to terrorism out of sheer embarrassment and envy.

Dear rpg,

Please cite where I said to be nice to terrorists or negotiate with them. They are not going to respect us no matter how brutal we are - no matter how many we slaughter.

They will simply fight harder. We are destroying Afghanistan and its people. If we leave it will not be wonderful in Afghanistan, but we will not be the ones who are slaughtering.

We can offer sanctuary to refugees after we check that they are genuine refugees. We can support resistance to the terror among their own people if there is genuine resistance rather than a corrupt puppet like Karzai. That really is all we can reasonably do.

They are not going to respect us even if we behave like them.