Re: Re: U.S. warned to prepare for long haul in Afghanistan

[Guest guest]

You're right. Some $4 billion in development aid was promised to Afghanistan in the early days. We went into Iraq and little of that money ever showed up because it was switched to Iraq. Also, most of the special forces and "tracking" specialists were taken from Afghanistan to Iraq. These trackers were a team that had developed very effective electronic means of listening in to communications and zeroing in on a target. They had honed their skills in the drug wars in Central and South America and were doing well in Afghanistan until they were pulled out, and later the media blabbed about them and the terrorists went silent.

With the best troops for hunting terrorists gone to Iraq, the Taleban got a reprieve. Add in the silly rules of engagement, the disallowing of aggressive patrols and ambushes to hunt IED teams, etc., small wonder we didn't take them out and that they are making a comeback.

In a message dated 7/1/2010 2:31:36 A.M. Eastern Daylight Time, no_reply writes:

What we should have done was finished the war in Afghanistan BEFORE we went into Iraq. I think our attention was diverted from Afghanistan when we went into Iraq.Administrator