Is it better to regret something you did, rather than to regret something you didn't do?

This week I was impressed by Obama's plan to move combat troops out of Iraq within 19 months, a bold move by a President who has got the Economic Recession, Health Care reform and Afghanistan on his hands. Feasible ? I believe yes, but what worries me more are the troops who will remain for training Iraqi forces and for Counter Terrorism operations. This just shows that U.S. still wants to be in control of the situation on the ground, and this will not help Iraq rebuild the country on its own.

Zed, a friend of mine made an interesting point while we were discussing this on Facebook, he said 

" ... i think, U.S. needs the instability for it to still continue to control some (if not all) of Iraq's resources... "

my interpretation was that U.S. needs Iraq to be unstable to have the upper hand. Hence I post an two open question does the U.S. really want Iraq to be successful in rebuilding their own nation? what advantages would an independent Iraq have to the U.S.?

Also this week I was particularly struck by the panel discussion on GPS, actually what really made my ears stand up, were these lines: 

" We should fight these fundamentalists, but with ideas, education, politics -- not with Predators. Those should be reserved for the much smaller band of jihadis, who seek to kill us. Otherwise, we're going to find ourselves at war around the world with a collection of varied groups that have varying goals."

  

and I agree with the "provisional thoughts" of Fareed on this subject, there is a line between the radicals who are taking over the Swat Valley in Pakistan and the terrorists who planned and executed the 9/11 attacks. Though both maybe categorized as fundamentalists, but there is a distinct difference between the two, Islamic Radicals want to have an Islamic Law impossed in their state, much like the Taliban, and on the other hand we have extremists who are waging a Global Jihad, and these like the notorious Al-Qaeda should be the ones we are fighting against. It is critical to understand the difference between the two because you don't go to a fight without knowing who your enemy is. I respect anyones opionion that opposes fundamentalism, but opposing ones beliefs should not be a reason for war. 

The point I am trying to make here is that the Taliban has no intention of killing us (the west and it's allies)  yet we are going to war against them. The war we have on our hands in Pakistan & Afghanistan is producing opposite results, we are going after and killing people, such as Talibans, who had no intention of killing us in the first place. So what are we as the western allies trying to achieve there? are we really eliminating enemies, or are we actually creating them? In my opinion we are not fighting a war against the Taliban, we are starting it.

links:

Fareed Zakaria GPS Podcast

Adventures of Zed