Re: 'Pakistan's Taliban-infested Swat valley'

As a former member of the U.S. Military, I am quite aware that the Taliban, and their ilk, will locate near or in civilian areas. This gives them two advantages: (1) they feel protected by surrounding themselves with innocent "victims" should they be attacked; (2) once attacked and innocent civilians, especially children, are injured or killed they can then point the finger (you can guess which one) at our military and attempt to make us the monsters.

As JD points out, this is not an extraordinary circumstance, but the normal circumstance. Wars are not fought on some battle board where there are only armies and no civilians while the rest of the country is where civilians are. Every war in history has been fought in populated areas, and the rare exceptions (for example, the North African campaigns in WW2) are that, rare exceptions. I have no idea how anyone can seriously expect the Taliban, or any other force, to only exist in isolated, uninhabited areas.

Now, a new thing, and comparatively unusual, is that one force is local and the other is from the opposite side of the world. Before the European Age of Discovery, this was unheard of. Both forces would be local, or at least one local and one from a neighboring land, so not completely alien, and always with the chance that a reversal of fortune would mean the front would move "back home" (cf France and Germany). Not the case here: the Taliban are local, but the USA and Nato, even at the worst case scenario, can simply run and go back home without the front following them. The Soviet Union were, at least, neighbors. This further complicates the issue of collateral damage. If both forces are local, both have a stake not to exercise unnecessary violence to civilians; if they are neighbors, the imperative is diminished, but remains because they have a stake not to provoke retaliation the following war. This imperative, though, is absent here. Americans do not have to fear an Afghan occupation; while Afghans do not really ever face American civilians (what civilians are there being often associated with the military presence or the UN structures).

So it's disingenuous to argue the civilian makeup of Afghanistan and Pakistan - one, because all forces in the world live among civilians, and two, because we went there, the other side of the world, choosing to fight in their homes among their people, and only sending soldiers (and diplomats), no civilians, for that fight.

Or, would you rather that we again, and again, loose over 3,000 souls to terrorists and murderers?

False dichotomy.

There are more options than "our innoocents die" and "their innocents die" - but I probably shouldn't have expected more, with the sorry state of American foreign policy.

Btw, the mistake there was not Obama's, or even Bush Jr's. It is Bush Sr's. HW should have sided with Saddam, not the Saudis. What have Saudi Arabia ever done for America?