Terrorists don’t need base camps to disrupt lives

Ken Anderson, Las Vegas

Sunday, May 30, 2010 | 2:02 a.m.

A journalist at President Barack Obama’s news conference Thursday asked the president why our troops are still in Afghanistan, and she asked him not to use the Bushism that if we don’t fight them over there, we will have to fight them over here.

Obama stuck with his old argument that as long as we have enemies over there who are planning to do harm to America, we must do all we can to disrupt their goals. Mr. President, I do not agree with you.

Militant Muslim factions, such as al-Qaida and the Taliban, can indeed be found in Afghanistan and, yes, they do not like us.

But one can go elsewhere and find militant Muslims who are willing to risk their lives to do us harm — on an airplane, or even in Times Square in New York.

The risk and cost of fighting in Afghanistan do not compare well with the underlying truth that it is an unwinnable war. Sure, we can claim victory in a battle now and then; our troops are the best on the planet.

But terrorists do not need a geographic base to carry out their operations. The operational base for 9/11 was in Hamburg, Germany. These types of conspiracies only require communication, money and planning, but not a major protected base camp.