Eight years ago we sent our troops, believed to be the finest fighting force in the world, into Afghanistan to capture, or kill, Osama bin Laden. We invaded a sovereign country looking to justify the murder of nearly 3,000 innocent civilians by a ragtag group of jihadists hellbent on forcing American military forces off Saudi Arabian soil. Determining later that al-Qaida was in Iraq we once again invaded another sovereign country starting yet another war, dismantling an entire culture while at the same time creating millions of refuges fleeing the carnage, a diaspora that eventually found their way to neighboring Arab countries as well as Europe and North America, consequently spreading their ill will toward, what they perceived as American imperialism, around the world.

It now appears, posthumously, that perhaps Pakistan should have been the haven in which we should have infiltrated in order to smoke out the enemy; not with an army but rather a well thought out team of special forces so as not to punish the innocent bystanders along with the jihadists.

I suppose Iran will be our next target as we circumvent the entire Arabian Peninsula looking for Osama, whom no doubt has now transformed into an army of Osama’s marching in lockstep.

Should we now expect President Barack Obama to clean up this quagmire with an additional 40,000 troops? Or should we give him the time needed to form a panel of intelligentsia, minus the generals, to see our way out of this mess.

Donnie Flecker

Anderson