Question of the Day | 10/13/2009 4:00 am

To ensure that there are no safe havens for terrorists, would you support keeping troops in Afghanistan for the next five years?

Liz Smith, Joan Ganz Cooney and Candice Bergen discuss the cost of safety.

Liz Smith | 10/13/2009 12:00 am

Liz Smith Fears Another Vietnam

I don’t know. I want the president to decide this fateful question. I fear we are damned if we do and damned if we don’t. But this is why I voted for Barack Obama and I don’t believe in second-guessing him for the rest of his term and adding to the confusion and hatefulness that is going on. I do fear another Vietnam.

19 Comments

Candice Bergen | 10/13/2009 12:00 am

Candice Bergen: Where Are the Terrorists?

Afghanistan? I thought we were shifting our focus to Pakistan. That’s where Al-Qaeda is said to be hanging these days. The Taliban is supposedly no threat to the West. Unless they team up. Which they are wont to do.

18 Comments

Joan Ganz Cooney | 10/13/2009 12:00 am

Joan Ganz Cooney on the Argument of War

I have heard so many smart and knowledgeable people argue both sides of this question that I have no idea what the right answer is. The big question for me always is how many American soldiers’ lives is it worth, not to mention civilians in Afghanistan? That question almost always turns me against the war option.

6 Comments

Read more about: Afghanistan, Al-Qaeda, Politics, Terrorism, War

163 Reader Comments (so far…) Sign In or Register to comment

"Patriotism is your conviction that this country is superior to all other countries because you wre born in it (George Bernard Shaw)."

By C jay on 10/13/2009 9:24 pm

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"Never fight an inanimate object." — P.J. O’Rourke

By Callie O on 10/13/2009 10:36 pm

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Good one!

By Patty E on 10/13/2009 12:29 pm

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… and for posterity, why the CIA didn’t know that Russia was in meltdown and let the US continue to try to block the Russians’ access to the Red Sea (OIL) with Desert Storm! sheesh.

By C jay on 10/13/2009 12:41 pm

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ps - all this hootin’ and hollaring about the "past 9 months" when the rotting core began a long time ago - and was heavily financed (with our dollars) to continue it -

By C jay on 10/13/2009 12:42 pm

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You hit a HUGE nail on the head! as the cliche’ goes—-but for many, it is an invisible nail! haha

I can still recall when Fareed Zakaria asked ‘our friend’ Musharrif (sp) about the money. He bristled up, and stated that they EARNED that money! All that money sent to Pakistan BEFORE Obama was the President! And where did it get us? Well….Americas’ middle class was liquidated, lets’ see….that started in 2001…we stopped regulating the Banks et al, maybe no money available to pay the office workers? becasue we were sending it all somewhere else? I am being kind, here….I won;t even mention that we shot the savings account going to war and paying out HUGE sums of money to people in Iraq—on a whim!

By Patty E on 10/13/2009 1:04 pm

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AND that in Sept 2008, his emmiinence nationalized the US banks to save everyone’s hides … and coats, and … castles, which wasn’t such a bad move but it socialized America and a minority didn’t do IT - hello people! Hee hee (done! kaput!)

By C jay on 10/13/2009 1:21 pm

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The region along the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan is known simply as "No Man’s Land" and it basically is just that. A tribal region ruled by war lords rather than by governments. The border is not really a border in that sense. To say he is in Pakistan is to say he is in Afghanistan. When Pakistan has cut off access, however, the access is still there through Afghanistan and that is why we are in Afghanistan but also why we may have to be in Pakistan as well at some point.

They seem insignificant to many. They have no real weapons. They have no real power. And yet they do control the region.l And if they are allowed to move into Pakistan and they obtain access to nuclear weapons, they will be the greatest threat to the world has ever faced. And one which the world may not be able to defeat until milliions are killed in nuclear holocausts.

By Baby Snooks on 10/13/2009 11:50 am

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yes, snooks, and as Richard Engle said, "the Taliban don’t bother most people" only Americans occupying Afghanistan. And, "they don’t see the Taliban as an imminent threat … they just don’t want the Taliban back in power " … (power - at the top - but they are all over - they are Afghanistan!) and "American forces protect them from Who?" and those fighting forces in the mountains are not just Taliban, they’re "all sorts of fighters" - Afghanistans want the US/NATO corruption stopped there from the past 8 years, over $300B spent "got lost in contracts … American arms suppliers … " et al.

Another Viet Nam but why!?????

By C jay on 10/13/2009 1:28 pm

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Unfortunately it’s still about the oil to some degree. But things have changed. Mainly in the White House. I suspect Barack Obama is concerned about the real threat of the Taliban. And of al Queda. I suspect he has realized the folly of the "military-industrial complex" which is quite evident in this finally - we are dealing with an enemy that has no borders. And we will not be able to retaliate in a nuclear attack on us. Unless we want to just blow up the whole world. Which the previous administration probably would have. My worst fear was that cowboy from Dr. Strangelove sitting on the missile as it descended to earth yelling out "yeeeeeeeeeeeeehawwwwwww" coming to life.

By Baby Snooks on 10/13/2009 1:36 pm

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Frankly, that is most likely any half-intelligent being’s fear, as well - it’s a real concern. The reality is when nations like our own built up enormous nuclear stockpiles, what on earth could be expected from other nations? Nationalism again!

By C jay on 10/13/2009 1:46 pm

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For anyone interested Frontline tonight on PBS has a report on Obama’s war in Afghanistan which could be more accurately titled McChrystal’s war. Here’s a quote from the NY Times review of the Frontline report from McChrystal on having to retake Helmond province:

General McChrystal doesn’t hide the bitterness in his voice as he describes having to take back Helmand Province all over again. “Once you clear something and don’t hold it, you probably didn’t clear it, it has no staying power,” he says. “ In fact I would argue that it’s worse, because you create an expectation and then you dash it. And so I think that you’re almost better to have not gone there at all.”

General you should have learned that lesson back in Vietnam.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/13/arts/television/13stanley.html?ref=arts

By F P on 10/13/2009 7:41 am

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Gen. McC would be better uitilized in Korea - because of his expertise - not in Afghanistan!

By C jay on 10/13/2009 1:29 pm

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I would support five more years in Afghanistan to ensure that that country is stable and able to handle its own security before we depart. I don’t even much care if they are democratic.

I do not support any time spent on any deployment anywhere if the goal is to "ensure there are no safe havens for terrorists." That is just as unattainable as "winning the war on terrorism." Can’t be done; like water in a balloon, if you squeeze one spot, the terrorists just flow to a spot you are not squeezing. Whether misguided, criminal, or evil, there will always be terrorists, whether it’s Osama Bin Laden in Afghanistan or Timothy McVeigh in the good ol’ USA.

The way to discourage terrorism (understanding that there are no guarantees in life!) is through competent and well-resourced law enforcement at home, and cooperation with, and pressure on, governments abroad.

Law enforcement has handled things like the 1920 Wall Street Bombing, the McVeigh case, the Atlanta bombings, the Unabomber, and even the 1993 World Trade Center bombing.

The military should be reserved to smack down those governments which threaten the US by sponsoring terrorism, not necessarily to go after the terrorists themselves; the military is a national instrument, it operates on the national level. That’s why the US bombed Libya in 1986 (retaliation for the Lockerbie bombing); why the US sent cruise missiles into Sudan and Afghanistan in 1998 (retaliation for the attacks on our embassies in Tanzania and Kenya); and why the US removed the Taliban from power in 2001.

Bin Laden is not important. The governments that might allow him an operational base are.

By Lila Kuh on 10/13/2009 7:47 am

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Do you realize that the only terrorist that we know about that Homeland Security has ever caught was the crazy shoe bomber? What is anything is this organization doing? The FBI is doing a much better job. I agree Bin Ladin is no longer important. What is important is the rise of Al Qaeda in Africa. Afghanistan is not stable nor will it ever be, not without a tremendous occupying force to keep it so. Are we ready to do that? Those people are still living in the 10th century or earlier. It’s a tribal situation much worse than Iraq. And where as I stated earlier on this threaad will we get the troops? Afghanistan is not called the graveyard of empires for nothing. Just ask the Brits and the Russians.

By F P on 10/13/2009 8:11 am