Afghanistan is very low priority in Germany and I am under the impression that it isn't even near top priority in the U.S. as well.
That is in my opinion a justified prioritization, if the numbers I've read about annual preventable deaths of ill-insured or uninsured patients are anywhere near correct. AQ would not kill that many U.S. citizens ever (much less the Taliban).

I despise ad hominem attacks (I've had my share as the target and usually expose them), but this doesn't exactly look like one. Cheney had a history of involvement in the conflict and the Bush/Cheney administration did reject a troops increase requested by McKiernan in 2008, right? So that's no good background for Cheney to criticize the current situation.

Cheney gets media attention due to the fact that he was in office as Vice President until recently, so his credentials-enabled publicity basically offers his credentials as a target.


Overall, the thread probably belonged more into the historical sub-forum, though.