Quote Originally Posted by Entropy View Post
The lack of interest at all levels with respect to Afghanistan in the early-mid 1990's came back to bite us in the ass. We had almost no one in the government who could speak Pashto or Dari. We had no insight into what was going on in the country. We had few contacts and those we had we generally ignored. All this left us with fewer options and less influence than we would have had when UBL became a threat, and it left us scrambling when 9/11 occurred.

I'm simply suggesting that we not repeat the mistake. We should certainly withdrawal military forces, but we need to be able to know what is going on in the country afterward and be positioned to influence events if necessary.
Agreed, I thought you were implying we should have intervened in a substantial way after the Soviets pulled out as many have implied (the Saudis, Paks, and others never quit intervening). Although based on open source reports on the initial operations in Afghanistan it appeared that at least the CIA had some contacts in Afghanistan going back to the 90s, so I don't think we were completely blind. On the other hand we were paralyzed politically and failed to act before 9/11. That is another story altogether.