Quote:
Originally posted by HarmlessRabbit
Personally, I had no problem with the lead-up to Afghanistan.
I did have a problem with the transfer of our attention from Afghanistan to Iraq before we were even done in Afghanistan.
I would have stayed in Afghanistan worked on building up a relationship with the Afghan people, and began serious reconstruction efforts. Afghanistan will continue to be a source of terrorism until the warlord system is dismantled, and that will only happen with the development of education, jobs, and resources in the area.
Rather than attack Iraq on our own, I would have reached out and built up a coalition, slowly, with UN approval, to go in and remove Saddam. Had Bush & Company not been total dicks to the rest of the world, this would have been possible.
My .02 
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HR, I disagree with some points, of course, but thank you for a well thought out response and not a knee jerk "we rushed into it" excuse that so many others seem to use. As far as Afghanistan goes, I agree we should still have more of a presence there. The major problem with redeveloping the country is that there is little in the way of a base to work from. Decades of war have destroyed infrastructure, educational systems, social orders, etc. It would take 20 years for us to get it into shape to stand on its own and only if we could find something other than drugs for them to market.
As far as attacking Iraq on our own, again I disagree but respect your point of view. There is no way we could have garnered UN support with France and Germany pushing their agendas. Not only did they stand to lose the money owed to them by Iraq, they are in collusion to dominate the EU and were/are using the Iraq issue to undermine US and British influence in the region.
Even if we could have garnered said support, the US would still bear the brunt of the costs and warmaking.