Remember - not to trivialize th the task of routing the Taleban - Russia lost because of Charlie Wilson.

IN teh 80s we gave Afgahn fighters money and weapons to fight the Soviet Union. Then we left them high and dry with the Taiban who got our weapons. and I prefer we & NATO do the job instead of giving money and weapons to other nations.

"...but his plans for that other war could mean trouble."

Doing anything or nothing in the Pakistan/Afghanistan region could mean trouble. Don't we all know by now the difficulties the British and Soviets faced trying to colonize Afghanistan? Does Obama want to colonize Afghanistan?

So, Pakistan is going to get mad at us if Obama is serious about tracking down Osama? (And Ayman al-Zawahiri.)

Are you suggesting that Obama wants war with Pakistan? The article isn't clear.

All this talk of "conquering" and "pacifying" is just plain bullshit. We upended a country that did not need either -- the people of Iraq just hoped to get rid of a nasty dictator with our help -- after our help of establishing Saddam as a dictator in the first place. Maybe Bush the younger, with all his fervent intent, was really going to amelieorate the betrayal and global greed of Bush the senior. Exhibit the initial welcoming response by the Iraqis to a "liberation" that then became to the Iraqi people an "occupation". Quickly.

Conquering and pacifying Afghanistan or Iran, for that matter, is as much a fool's errand. These are not stupid people. They will not be treated as such. They recognize the chilling effect this has had on our own country, America, the place of freedom. They know tyrants when they see them. We don't see them in our own back yard.

I read this and my first thought is insanity. My second is mass delusion coupled with insanity. It seems to me sheer lunacy to mire down the United States in Afghanistan trying to organize yet another basically alien society in the western mode. This is not a western country and never will be as long as religion remains the strongest societal force. This country was important in the past to some in the context of the cold war and the Russian invasion. Upon their exit, it was forgotten. The fact that the Taliban gained sway, blew up some Buddhist icons, and welcomed Bin-Laden also had little importance until 9-11. The only conceivable interest of the US is to capture or kill Bin-Laden and leave. The rest of it is a fool's errand as large as trying to hold competing religious sects together in Iraq to achieve some "victory" in McCain's terms which will be pyrrhic in any case. Either the Iraqis and the Afghans will themselves change their abysmal historical trajectory or they won't. It is their choice, not the US's, not Nato's. And no amount of blood and treasure will make it any different.

The utter vapidness and mismanagement of American foreign policy is patently obvious in these two countries and the larger ME. The failure to force Israel to make peace, or leave them to their own devices to wallow in another 60 years of war, along with the failure to acknowledge the human costs and suffering on the part of the Palestinians shows that the US is hobbled by the same forces at work in Israel, religion, electoral politics beholden to fanatics, general hysteria, and fear of the unknown, not to mention a lack of imagination and guts. I see nothing new in Obama, just a novel packaging of the same old claptrap of the last 60 years. The last ones to show any imagination were Truman and Carter.

Who cares who is in NW Afghanistan and Pakistan and how they govern themselves. Go in. Get Osama or kill him and leave. Or just leave. He is not as important as going even more bankrupt to prove a point. He is a police issue, not a fucking search for the Holy Grail.

Obama has the same mindset as the Bushites and the rest of the Democrats and Republicans, pax americana and big dog on the block. How else to explain a more than half a trillion defense budget when there are no real dangers to the US other than invented ones. You just can't live without a boogieman can you. Neither is there an honest public analysis of why 9-11 occurred which propelled this decade of dishonest hysteria on the part of the American government. 9-11 occurred because of lousy American foreign policy made by many administrations, an overarching hubris on the part of those administrations, a failure to understand these cultures and the aspirations of those involved, and compounded by the grossest stupidity, misjudgment, incompetence, and outright lying criminality on the part of the current adminstration.

Bush has managed to mire an entire country and world for that matter in one insignificant region. If we just packed up and left, it would make no real difference to anybody except the residents. If they desire to kill each other over mythology or 7th century grievances, so be it. We have no dog in that fight.

First, a "nuclear Pakistan" is not a threat to the United States. Pakistani nukes can only used regionally (they are mostly designed to be used against India), not the US.

Second, we have already been making "unilateral" forays into Pakistan. Do you honestly think ANY US president would NOT make a move against Osama bin Laden if we had "actionable intelligence against him" and the Pakistanis said "no?" It is most likely that the Pakistanis would say "no" with their mouths while nodding "yes," with their heads. They depend upon us for millions of dollars of military and development aid.

For whatever reason, people have been acting as if Obama does not know what he is doing in this region: WRONG. He is the candidate who mentioned that negotiating with India is an important element in helping Pakistan be able to act more decisively on the Eastern Pakistani border. Obama is the candidate who is talking about working harder to give more international aid to Afghanistan to help combat the opium trade more aggressively. Obama is the candidate who can inspire and work with our NATO Allies to get more international troops to the region. Obama actually believes in "soft diplomacy" (that is help with schools and hospitals) and negotiation.

But, most of all -- and this is something that Juan Cole and Salon's readers need to be more confident about: Obama is the candidate who can walk and chew gum at the same time. Something that will be a GREAT CHANGE after the last 8 years!