In his speech Tuesday about preventing Afghani "safe havens", Obama couldn't acknowledge the safe havens the 9-11 attackers used so easily and extensively for planning and flight training - in Hamburg, Germany and San Diego, California - before they attacked. Because that would remind everyone that geography is irrelevant to stateless terrorists. Otherwise we'd have to occupy Hamburg and bomb San Diego - or heaven forbid, treat 9-11 as a crime instead of a territorial, racial or religious war.
The most telling moment in Wednesday's House Committee hearings: when General Jones was quoted as saying there are maybe 100 Al Qaeda in all of Afghanistan, and neither Gates, Mullen nor Hillary disputed it. The Congressman then asked whether there have to be just 50 before we're allowed to admit success and leave. (Who was that fine representative?)
OK - so the US is investing 30,000 new US lives, risking a million Afghani lives and spending $180 billion a year to stop 100 people who could plot terrorism anywhere from doing it in southern Afghanistan? Help me out here.