See, T-Bird, this is where you obviously have some wirin' problems... 58% of the Afgan people safer??? Why not 59% 'er 99% 'er 110%??? I mean, when people throw out arbitrary statistics like that it's almost like watching the dumb toothpaste commercials where Suzie Creamcheeze says that since she's been brushin' with ToothBrite that she has had 58% fewer cavaties... I mean, you are an otherwise somewhat intellegent person so you must realize that when you start you defensive rebuttal with such a bogus and arbitrary claim that you have seriously hurt your arguments...

Here's my beef with cowboy foriegn policy... It doesn't work... It can't ever work because it is flawed... Okay, if it's a conventional war with one side (country) amassing its armies aginst another then maybe... But when you have a few bad apples in an area killing all the apples ain't real smart... Like who is to know the bad apples from the good??? Think Vietnam here...

No, a much smarter way to deal with bad apples is to get in the apple sack and remove them one by one...

(Well, Boberdz... How do you do that???)

First of all you maintain diplomatic relations with the sack with the bad apples... You don't do anything that will kill off the good apples, like sanctions... That's a good first start... Then you get some of the good apples, since they look very much like the bad ones, to work for you (spies, if you will) and tell you who are the bad apples... Then you arrest or surgically removed the bad ones... You know, like police do in civil societies...

But to just blow the crap outta the entire sack of apples, while being very entertaining to folks with IQ's on the southside of a hunnert is plain stupid... That is what George Bush did in both Afganistan and Iraq and it was and still is stupid...

And I understand the politics that Obama is dealing with here but I expected him to not fall into the same trap as your heros, Bush, Cheney, Wolfy, Pearle, Rice, and Rumsey... But, alas, the politics have overwhelmed Obama and looks as if he's takin' what I consider to be the politically expedient way out... You know, hearing a burgular in downstairs and called the police asking them to just blow the entire house up...

B~