Ah, the humanitarian in us ...
We don't have much time though, based on public news reports. Do you think "we'd still have to go into those countries" if they launched a WMD against our forces or those of our allies ?
I suppose we would at some point. I don't want to wait for the event. I believe in the Bush doctrine of preemptive strikes. History bears it out.
The humanitarian in you perhaps.
I personally, don't really give a sh!t about the people in any of those places. We had to go into Afghanistan not because of the plight of the people but because the fundies could not be rooted out by air power alone. We're still trying to root them out. We are on the ground right now in Iraq looking and looking for Saddam's WMD. Who knows how long it's going to take to find them. You'd have to go in to each of those places because the air strikes would not accomplish all your goals. When you're dealing with WMD 80% uncertainty is not acceptable. Not at all.
You believe in the Bush doctrine of preemptive strikes? But a preemptive strike isn't limited to air power. We preempted Saddam by physically going into Iraq. Let's say you launch a massive cruise missile strike into Pakistan. You think you might have taken out all the nukes there but you're not sure. What are you going to do? You have to have human beings on the ground to make sure. Would you feel comfortable with hearing the Pentagon spokesman say to the television
"we may have gotten all the nukes, but now since the Taliban/al Qaeda have overthrown Musharraf, we just can't tell?"LOL. I wouldn't be able to sleep at night where I presently live if that were the case.
But not to put to fine of a point on it- preemptive strikes doesn't mean "not physically going into a country". Air power alone is not very effective- unless we're talking nukes here. Now you can solve a lot of problems really quickly with nukes.