1970-1976 Since you asked. And I still remember walking through Atlanta airport in A’s and having a Delta stew stop me and drop a cigarette butt in my hand and laughing at the gesture. So we have some things in common.
I do not support nation-buiiding in the sense that we make a long-term commitment to a regime.
You have to admit, this is a different type of war than what we’ve faced in the past. There are no nation-states that are combatants. We are facing a bunch of religious zealots that are aligned with an ideal, not a nation. This is going to have to be fought in a different way. Frankly, the war in Iraq was still against a nation-state, the Taliban is not. Al-Quida is not.
But what sense does it make to announce to our enemies that we are going to send 30,000 more troops and then start to withdraw them in 18 months. There has to be SOMETHING to use as a guage. I don’t want to withdraw our guys in 18 months to have to re-deploy them again in another 18 months. If the “mission” is to break the back of the Taliban, then that is the mission.
Since you think this is “nation-building”, what guage would you use?
There is only one way to handle Afghanistan with the big bombs. Put it on the level they understand, and remind them often. You let people come to out country and attack our people. We will be walking these hills and killing your people until you are dead and your sons are dead and the sons of his sons are dead. And it doesn't take a troop surge to do that. A hundred years from now we will still be killing you!