AFGHANISTAN DECISION

My guess, for what it's worth, is that President Obama will find a middle ground on the troop increase and provide fewer troops than requested. And the strategy will probably be tweaked toward the Joe Biden position and explicitly or implicitly away from nation building.

I'm fine with that. There may well be words of support for the Afghan government, but we and our allies are unlikely to commit to the numbers of troops and the time and the money required to build a viable, honest national government. In my opinion, we need to keep a sufficient force in the region to keep Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups from re-establishing a base there and to protect and aid Pakistan. What the troop number and operational strategy should be is way beyond my thought process.

While I'm generally against nation building or intervention in foreign lands, I would support one unlikely scenario. If the principal nations of the world would agree and provide moral and material support, I would have us join in action to prevent undue oppression and human suffering imposed by evil regimes such as Idi Amin's or the Taliban.