Voices: Disastrous campaign?

March 08, 2009 08:33 pm

— With reference to the editorial (Globe, March 3), I agree completely with the editor’s approval of the manner in which President Obama proposes to extract the country from Iraq.
I do have an issue with the touted success of the surge. There were essentially three reasons for the decrease in sectarian violence: the stand-down of Muqtada al-Sadr’s Mahdi Army, placing 100,000 Sunnis on the U.S. payroll at $300 per month (figure the cost), and the role of the boys of Iraq.
I have the same question as does the Globe about our long-term commitment to Afghanistan. I am afraid that we may be confronted with another disastrous campaign. In the book “Kill Bin Laden,” the Afghan warlord General Hazret Ali (and he is on our side) told Delta Force Commander Dalton Fury that the Russians could not win and neither could the Americans.
Robert E. Noel
Lamar, Mo.