GUEST, petr,

The point I was making with that statement was that the goal is to eliminate terrorism. It may be necessary to try break the Taliban's rule in Afghanistan in order to do this. But war between us and the Taliban is not necessarily the only way that the Taliban might be unseated. So the idea is to find the most effective way to accomplish the goal of eliminating terrorism.

There are several groups of Afghan fighters who are convinced that they can get rid of the Taliban more effectively than anyone else, and they have stated that officers in Bin Ladin's military have committed themselves to fighting against Bin Ladin if these other fighters organize and take Bin Ladin on. They are convinced that if we use agression in Afghanistan, we will make the problem worse, rather than better. They said "Let the Afghans do it".

So my point is for us to adopt whatever strategy will be the most effective in accomplishing our goal in the long run. Even if it goes against what we conventionally think of as being the way to get things during wartime.