Nothing like scattering your forces and making sure nothing get accomplished, eh? How about you take things one step at a time, get the job done, and move on? We knew Al Qaeda had safe habor in Afghanistan, so we went in. That worked for me, seemed to make sense, went right to the source, etc. We barely got that project started and we bled into Iraq, for reasons that seemed to make little sense. We have a bare-bones sized military, and are under-gunned in terms of equipment. WHY take on TWO wars at once, as well as simultaneously supposedly beefing-up the protection of our borders our ports and the rest of the country? Who's ass is big enough to pull out THAT magic trick? There was nothing pressing about "taking out Saddam" other than our current president had a personal chat with God. Perhaps dealing with Al Qeada in a decisive way would have sent a clear message to the rest of the "evil doers", a la the example brought up in another thread of how Khadaffi got quieted down. It might have meant that we WOULDN'T have had to go into another war. Of course, logic and reason were given short shrift and here we are, in a cluster-fuck that's just getting worse. Congress asked over and over before they gave the president approval to go to war what the exit strategy was. There never WAS one. They were convinced this war was necessary and gave approval, now it's being waged in a very dubious fashion. Our troops don't have what they need to fight effectively, or in as safe a manner for themselves. These National Guardsman are not trained to the standards as regular military, they are more equiped to deal with natural disasters. Dump them into a war zone with their unarmored trucks and it's no wonder they mutiny.
Congress can give approval for war, but they can't control the strategy once it gets started. And NEVER before has there been a mandated black-out of news on casualties, and a ban on pictures of returning coffins. The doctors treating the casualties tell VERY different stories about the numbers of Americans severely maimed than the administration wants the public to know. Even Rumsfeld, who along with Tom Ridge are curiously absent in past months, asked whether we are killing the terrorists faster than they are recruiting new ones. It seems they fear they might be hatching faster than we can kill them off.
So, you tell me if this was the best order in which to go about dealing with these problems. Saddam was an emasculated little wad, at best, and would have sat nicely on the shelf for as long as we needed him to. We could have dealt with him later, if need be, but now we're not effectively dealing with anything.
KJ