LETTER TO THE EDITOR:

Keep it simple: Just go after the bad guys

Marvin Adelman, Las Vegas

Saturday, Oct. 31, 2009 | 2:02 a.m.

For those who don’t know about Willie Sutton, he was a famous bank robber who while in prison was asked why he robbed banks. His response was the legendary “because that’s where the money is.”

If we would follow that logic, we would pull out of Afghanistan and go after al-Qaida where it is enjoying a peaceful time — in Yemen and Somalia.

We don’t need to change the structure of these countries — just go after the bad guys.

We could go to the United Nations and offer to form a posse with other countries. That’s what they did in the old days in America to chase down bad guys. That way we wouldn’t have to threaten governments.

Give us the bad guys who are trying to kill us and we leave. Period. End of story.

If countries such as Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, Algeria and Afghanistan knew that was our only mission, they would most likely help us, as they are afraid of these guys as well.

Wouldn’t this be a better choice for America?

Discussion: 10 comments so far…

By Houstonjac

10/31/09 at 5:09 a.m.

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Let me see--we would go to whom in Afghanistan and say "give us the bad guys"? The bad guys are
Taliban, and they are rooted in so firmly that it will take years of fighting to rid the nation of them. The government is incapable of even governing the major cities without corruption, much less turning over the bad guys. Pakistan is currently fighting the bad guys, and don't want us in the country at all. This just is not a realistic plan for defeating the extremists. We will need to keep boots on the gound in Afghanistan for years. A full scale counterinsurgency is needed there.We will have to win over the hearts and minds ofpeople there by protecting the cities so that normal life becomespossible, and eventually,hopefully, the local tribesin the country side will turn on the Taliban--this way we avoid the fatal mistakes made by the Soviet Union during its war with the Afghan guerrillas in the 1979-1989 war.
By fremmasmind

10/31/09 at 6:12 a.m.

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We have already wasted way too much money sending troops to police other countries. It's time to bring all of our troops home. It's not worth losing our soldiers . We end up killing citizens of those countries because we don't who could possibly be the enemy, or the patriot defending his own space. Imagine a foreign nation invading our country and Canadian citizens came over to help us with our fight. Would this invading country consider the Canadians insurgents?
By SgtRock

10/31/09 at 7:59 a.m.

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This letter sounds exactly on how the brain trust in Obama's adminstration thinks.

Oh My God.....our country is ran by goobers.
By LarryVegas

10/31/09 at 8:02 a.m.

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The wailer had me going for a while there. Until I got to the part that mentions the United Nations.
The U.N. has not and will not do anything but continue to remain a great big sucking hole that the whole world dumps money into.
By jlb101

10/31/09 at 8:03 a.m.

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Maybe Canada could come over and help us with our fight. We are incapable of keeping the illegals out ourselves. Some new ideas from outside might help.
By POWERPLAY

10/31/09 at 8:19 a.m.

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The world dos have a posse it's called Interpol and it's useless because it has to many rules it must follow. You can't catch bad guys with a rule book that questions your every move.
By mrsteacher

10/31/09 at 8:25 a.m.

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Willie Sutton never uttered those words. See http://www.snopes.com/quotes/sutton.asp
By Houstonjac

10/31/09 at 8:32 a.m.

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That's right,bring our troops home, stick our heads in a hole and wait for the exremists to move in with their WMDs and take over. What planet do you live on? We do not send troops to Afghanistan because it's a great place to vacation. we are fighting a war against extremism.
By destruct_mutt

10/31/09 at 11:51 a.m.

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We couldn't even get Roman Polanski from France in 20 years

What the heck makes anyone think you' re going to get al-Qaida or the Taliban from anywhere?

10,535 times 20 let's see ..... carry the one ..... carry the 2 ...... we may as well settle in for a while.

Maybe we can just offer them an award in Switzerland.
By StanG

10/31/09 at 4:45 p.m.

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They say there's only about 10,000 Taliban. So let's offer each of them $1,000,000 (that's 10 billion total, about our monthly cost of doing business there), a homestead in, I don't know, say North Dakota plus a 7-11 franchise and some taxi cabs. Kick Karzai out, turn the government over to the Afghan women and leave.