- Starting Wars
- Winning Battles
- Losing Wars
Let's start with Afghanistan, many agree a necessary war. The might of the US quickly dispatched, or so it appeared, the Taliban, chasing them and their al Queda allies into the rugged Afghan mountains. I guess at this point Rumsfeld must have thought that the mountains, not the "evil doers" in them, as they started bombing the mountains. As anyone, with even a minimal knowledge of geology, would have known this had little impact. While Rummy was bombing mountains and getting ready to invade Iraq the Warlords who had been running Afghanistan for centuries took over most of the country and started growing opium again, something the Taliban had not let them do. The country is so dangerous that private aid agencies are leaving. The US installed president cannot leave the capitol, Kabul, and even there has to be guarded by US Special Forces. A few al Queda leaders have been killed or captured but the value of that has been primarily of a public relations nature. Al Queda has re-invented itself and is more dangerous now than it was before 9-11.
And then there's Iraq. After a swift "shock and awe" victory in Iraq the situation there rapidly deteriorated into chaos. Juan Cole has done an excellent job of documenting the incompetence of the Bush administration in Iraq and I won't plagerize the wise professors material. It would appear that the end may be near. The recent attempt to destroy the insurgency of Muqtada al-Sadr by the US, and encouraged by it's puppet Allawi, in Najaf may well be the long anticipated beginning of the end. The former "friends" of the US, the Shia, have now turned against the occupiers (Muqtada Press Conference: "No Ordinary Politics Under Occupation"). This was all predicted before the war. The real incompetence of the neo-cons may have been an inability and unwillingness to listen to those who questioned their pre-conceived notions.
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