Quote Originally Posted by slapout9 View Post
BW, what do you do with Politcal leaders that do think it is in our National Interest? Where is some objective standard to measure it as opposed to some Vodoo motive.
Other countries do a better job of establishing and publishing their interests than the U.S. does. In fact, as an American you have to actively go out and search a wide range of documents and statements to sort out what our interests are, which causes them to be much more fluid than they should be in general, and also means that 10 different people on such a quest are apt to come in with 10 similar, but different answers.

So, good questions like:

"What do you believe America's top 5 interests to be, and could you explain which of those interests are so deeply rooted in Afghanistan that you are willing to risk damage to them everywhere else to wage a war over them in that one country?"

(Such a question is likely get a fuzzy answer as to what our interests are, and a rhetoric laced statement about terrorists or AQ in return. That should then open the door to hard questions about the nature of AQ as an organization and their operations and how to best deal with them around the globe in a whole of government approach in conjunction with our allies, who by the way, have their own national interests which some may be shocked to learn do not necessarily coincide with, nor subjugate themselves to US interests.)