Hi, Tim,

Thanks for invitation to join this blog and for giving me some direction. I heard an interesting discussion on NPR last week with a professor, Andrew Basovich. His position on the surge for Afghanistan is that invasion and occupation do not reduce terrorism. He believes it will exacerbate it. He believes that a well-resourced international police effort would be more effective in ruthlessly rooting out . He stated that the jihadist threat is not located in any particular country. Instead, the threat is an "idea" that requires international effort.

Although this is a position I can appreciate, I am in agreement with you that our President had little choice other than the one he made about sending troops. Basovich's idea would have served us well before we invaded and occupied two ME countries.