Seeing the Afghan Forest Not the Trees

William Pfaff wrote on September 17, 2001: "Clearly, the United States needs to deal with Mr. bin Laden's terrorist organization, but that is essentially a police and intelligence problem.
Long-term United States interests cannot afford a "war" that risks toppling Saudi Arabia and other conservative Islamic regimes into alliance with the radical movements already powerful in Iran, Sudan, Algeria, and influential in Egypt, Pakistan, the Balkans, the Caucasus, Central Asia, and sub-Saharan Africa. That, though, is the risk."

Now, Pakistan threatens to come unglued and the President is being advised to send in 40,000 troops.

What he needs to do is read this article below.

clipped from www.williampfaff.com Realism about Al Qaeda Paris, October 17, 2009 William Pfaff If the president and Congress were to follow the implied message of the Sageman presentation, the probability of Mr. Obama’s serving eight, rather than four, more years in the White House would greatly rise. Marc Sageman is a forensic and clinical psychiatrist who has served as a Naval flight surgeon, then as a CIA officer who between 1987 and 1991 was in Islamabad and New Delhi directing the U.S. multilateral program with the Afghan Mujahedin. He concludes that “effective counter-terrorism strategy [is] on the brink of completely eliminating al Qaeda.” There will be no organization to return. This is the result of effective international and domestic intelligence cooperation as well as good police work. So why, one asks, is the U.S. expanding its war in Afghanistan?