I was in agreement on operations in Afghanistan, but not in Iraq. It would have been difficult, and looked weak, to not deal with AQ in Afghanistan. My view is that the Bush foreign policy team was loaded with Cold war experts. Cheney is a mystery to me, as he should have had some knowledge about the area.

For a bunch of people who should have had some awareness of the long term issues of the area, they just didnt act that way. Afghanistan is a nightmare with its geography and tribal culture. If they were aware of the long term problems with the ISI, the FATA and India, why did they ignore these issues or just give carte blanche to Musharraf? To anwer my own question, I think they put all their energy into Iraq.

Steve

If the Mumbai attack had occured in New York, do you think the US response would be anywhere near as restrained as India's has been so far?

Ok..so you can bomb the daylights out of Afghanistan(Taliban) based on a stupid grainy videotape. In our case, we caught a fidayeen alive along with evidence of his trail, his communication intercepts with known LeT commanders in Pak. We also had intercepted similar communication between terrorists who blew up our Kabul Embassy and all roads leads to Rome...err Terror state of Pakistan. And we are irresponsible..so that means the guys who planned and perpetrated the Mumbai attacks killing random 200 people of different nationalities..is the responsible one..give me a break..

Steve, I think there was plenty of expertise but an urgent problem (Al Qaeda operations in Afghanistan and the Taliban government that supported them) that was politically necessary to deal with while a lot of the experts were recommending not doing anything.

BTW, I was opposed to a land intervention in Afghanistan largely for the reasons we see right now. However, I don't think that lack of expertise was the central problem. Willingness to listen to the experts at hand, perhaps.

Steve