I think it is absolutely insane and cowardly to mobilize that much military force (most of it air power) to go after the Taliban, who, as I said earlier on this list at least twice, don't even seem to have one full combat brigade of mechanized infantry or armor. We are deploying hundreds of billions of dollars of equipment and billions of dollars of expense to repeatedly bomb foot soldiers and jeeps. Why? Because we don't want to lose a single soldier if we can help it. By top-down choice, our professional forces seem to have less commitment placed on them than paid mercernaries from another country. It's not war in any sense that I can think of .
As for all the white noise and disinformation coming out of Afghanistan, I still haven't a clue. I doubt seriously that the Taliban were in on any pact to take on the US. The fewer people who knew of the WTC plans, the better chance of pulling it off. I have my doubts that it was even orchestrated by OBL. It seems to be a revenge plot plain and simple that may have got direct or indirect support from OBL.
If we fall for the sideshow of Afghanistan, then we miss who is responsible for all the misses with national and homeland security (and you cans start with the ten billion being spent annually on anti-terrorism measures before 9-11). All this talk of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and we get box cutters and some highly motivated acts.
Don't want to start conspiracy theories again, but anyone find the official releases on the airplane crash strange? Wow, did they reach conclusions (some of them contradictory) rather quickly. O.K., maybe it wasn't a bomb on board or a Stinger from the ground. But what if a terrorist group has compromised plane maintenance or terrorists have managed to get fake parts into the supply system?
Charles Jannuzi