Iraq was based on faulty intel. It was a winnable war in spite of what the MSM worked hard to convey. They have a long history of civilization and an educated populace. Peaceful self rule prospects were good.
Afghanistan is a different story. There's a reason Cheney and Rumsfeld wanted limited involvement there... they LISTENED to their military leaders and experts. It is really a nation in name only. As you probably know, it is made up of tribes who fight each other unless an outsider shows up. It is a GREAT hideaway for terrorists and a quagmire for anyone who attempts to go in militarily. There was no winning move there... Obama getting more involved just made more of them resent us.
I agree with your other point. We are still in places that don't need us in part because we help their economies. But we can't just pretend that radical Islam is not in the business of expanding. They believe they have a mission from Allah to put the whole world under a single Islamic gov't by whatever means necessary. I am afraid that Paul vastly underestimates the threat.
FTR, I think Paul is staying in the race at this point to get his son the VP nod from Romney. To the extent he is taking votes they are probably coming from someone other than MR.
I'm actually OK with that. I line up much more with Rand than any of the candidates who ran in this cycle.
My personal experience makes me have to disagree with the bolded part. When I was a CJTF-76 we had to fight with the OSD to bring in 4 155 howitzers to help cover the area around FOB Salerno. There was a group that continually crossed the Paki border to attack our border checkpoints and the FOB and our analysis said just a small increase in force and range would help. In the end, they approved and the additional artillery proved to be the key to winning a couple of pretty intense battles in that area.
After I left CJTF-76 and went to work in the Ministry of Defense, I sat in too many video conferences with the OSD, CENTCOM etc. where they continued to insist on sticking to their plan without listening to the folks on the ground. For example, they wanted to ensure the stability of Afghanistan after OEF and one means was to ensure the Afghans had a viable means of defending themselves. But, they insisted that all they would help build was a 70,000 man infantry force--no artillery, no armor, no helicopters, no logistics, no intel...you get the point. Just enough infantry to be worthless in that part of the world. It took a Russian IL-76 landing in Kabul with a bunch of military equipment for sale that made Rumsfeld change his mind, not anything we had to say.
Those are just two examples of where they didn't listen. The biggest was simply the re-prioritization of Iraq over Afghanistan. We had the moral high ground, a good plan and the momentum on our side in Afghanistan in 02-03 but suddenly resources started flowing toward Iraq. Even when Iraq was quiet in late 2003-early 04 and we were fighting some fairly large fights in Afghanistan, we saw resources diverted away from us to what we all knew was going to become a much worse situation in Iraq. In my view, the way we put more and more forces into Iraq after Spring of 03 (and to a large extent the way we deployed the forces) led to more and more casualties until finally the NCS and OSD gave up and asked us what we needed to do to really win that fight.
Had they listened to us and kept on track in Afghanistan, we could have gained enough stability to finish up things by 2006. We succeeded with the Presidential election in 2004, followed by the Parliamentary election in 2005. Another year and there would have been 70-100k combined armed force, plus between 300-500K trained police--certainly enough for Karzai to exert enough influence around the country for us to leave. Instead it became a holding mission as we had to fix Iraq...
Yes, Iraq was based on faulty intel but if the faulty intel gives you what you want to hear in the first place it is very hard to disregard it.
Regarding the Islamic expansion. I agree, this is well documented by many in the Salafist movement. There are stated goals to expand and regain the historic caliphate. If you look at the map, you will see on-going efforts in all of those countries that were once part of the Islamic world. It would almost seem that they think if they can keep us busy in certain areas then they can spread out without opposition in other areas...
all for now, have to get some work done.
