So over the last few days you have had a US President speak about US intervention as part of a "coalition" of the willing, about the "terrorist" threat to both the USA directly, the allies of the USA and to nations in the middle-east region. A threat that must be addressed and addressed urgently.

Excuse me but didn't his immediate predecessor state exactly the same thing just over a decade ago only to be ridiculed and slated for it? GWB was right then and so is Barack Obama now - high time everybody else woke up to smell the coffee.

What is happening now has got nothing whatsoever to do with what America has done in Afghanistan, in Iraq or in Libya - radical Islam and the Islamists have been at war with, and attacking, the "big, bad West" since 1971.

I am afraid to disappoint you Greg but there is still no sign of Baghdad falling - and the prospect of it doing so get more remote with the passing of each day.

Aims of US-OEF Mission in Afghanistan were more or less achieved in full 71 days after the decision was made to assist the Northern Alliance - The Aim? To drive the Taliban from power and then push them and their Al-Qaeda guests out of Afghanistan and back over the border into Pakistan from whence both organisations originally came.

Aims of the UNAMA & ISAF Missions in Afghanistan was to return the country to stable governance by extending the footprint of central government, assist in the UN/Afghan Government's nation-wide programme of reconstruction and assist in the creation, establishment,recruitment, training and equipping of Afghan National Security Forces capable of defending the country and enforcing the rule of law and order within its borders. The UNAMA mission is ongoing, while ISAF's mission was by and large completed by July last year when responsibility for national security and law enforcement throughout Afghanistan was handed over to the Afghan Government and the ANSF. The ANSF, non-existent in 2001, have been fighting the Taliban since 2006, their track record to date is that they have not been defeated once by Taliban forces against them.

Afghanistan today is light years down the road in terms of improvement to what it was under the Taliban in 2001.