Your last post made a very important point.

In fact, the Afghan Taliban didn't even get along with the predominantly "Afghan Arab" Al Qaeda cadres, back when before September 2001 when they played host. The Al Qaeda leaders tended to act high-handed around the Talib leaders, and they were after all foreigners, interlopers. The Taliban tolerated them as long as they stayed up in their mountain training camps, but Al Qaeda seems to have done little or no consulting together or collaborations with the regime in Kabul. Relations between the tow parties were sometimes quite fractious, in fact- Al Qaeda suffering from the problem of all fanatics: their purism and stringency alienates anyone used to a less strict religious regime. The Taliban come by their Salafism second-hand- they aren't really all that comfortable with the undiluted stuff.

It's actually quite ironic- for anyone seeking a model of something like 100% undiluted political and social "conservatism", the ultimate logical result inevitably resembles something like Al Qaeda. They're the ultimate Right Wing of their societies- theological totalitarians.

Even nonconfrontational, get-along-to-go-along ordinary folks find those types insufferable, after a while. They lean too hard.

And all too often, it seems as though all they want is blood. That's their program. It isn't all that popular- unless the proposed fight can be mounted against an enemy of foreign invaders.

I would feel more comfortable if Pakistan or one of the old soviet "stans" would allow us to set up a long-term base in-country so al-Qaeda does not reconstitute itself.

U.S. armed forces have had a base at Bishkek, Kyrgystan- Manas- since at least 2001. Pre-dating 9/11, i think.

The Kirghiz were getting ready to kick us out, back in February this year. Something about the USA being behind in the rent.

However, the Obama administration has eveidently negotiated new terms with the government of Kyrgystan- the rent has apparently tripled, but the US gets to stay.

It sounds like a bargain to me- as long as there's a Central Asian forward base to contend with the possibility that terrorist groups might attempt to rebuild a territorial sanctuary in the region, there's no need for occupying Afghanistan.

And if Al Qaeda returns to Afghanistan- an event I consider highly unlikely- we'll just do what was done before, only we'll be better prepared to do it, and they'll be a lot less prepared to resist or escape.

I realize that people like NotOrbitBoy and virtue001 are not going to like this, but Al Qaeda never constituted anything like a serious threat to U.S. national security. Their chances of overthrowing this government or doing us serious damage in warfare are nil. The only direction they'll ever be able to influence US policy by future acts of terror would be in the direction of the US government taking a more severe line toward them.

I defy you to refute this:

...It’s not like al-Qaida is an evil weed indigenous to Afghanistan and dependent on its climate and soil for survival. Its members were foreign imports in the first place, recruited by our CIA to fight the Soviets because there were evidently not enough locals to do the job. After all, U.S. officials first forged the alliance between the foreign fighters and the Afghan mujahedeen, who morphed into the Taliban, and we should not be surprised that that tenuous alliance ended. The Taliban and other insurgents are preoccupied with the future of Afghanistan, while the Arab fighters couldn’t care less and have moved on to more hospitable climes.

There is no indication that any of the contending forces in Afghanistan, including the Taliban, are interested in bringing al-Qaida back. On the contrary, all the available evidence indicates that the Arab fighters are unwelcome and that it is their isolation from their former patrons that has led to their demise...

...Even in neighboring Pakistan, the remnants of al-Qaida are barely hanging on. As The Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday, “Hunted by U.S. drones, beset by money problems and finding it tougher to lure young Arabs to the bleak mountains of Pakistan, al Qaeda is seeing its role shrink there and in Afghanistan, according to intelligence reports and Pakistan and U.S. officials. … For Arab youths who are al Qaeda’s primary recruits, ‘it’s not romantic to be cold and hungry and hiding,’ said a senior U.S. official in South Asia.”

It’s time to declare victory and begin to get out rather than descend deeper into an intractable civil war that we neither comprehend nor in the end will care much about. Terrorists of various stripes will still exist as they have throughout history, but the ones we are most concerned about have proved mighty capable of relocating to less hostile environments, including sunny San Diego and southern Florida, where the 9/11 hijackers had no trouble fitting in...

http://tinyurl.com/yb762e7

Refute that. Pick it apart with facts and logic, claim by claim.

Playing TV politics by name-checking personalities like Harry Reid is irrelevant. Recycling old canards about other historical examples is irrelevant.

Direct your objections to the claims I've posted, on the situation at hand. Using facts and logic.