The ISI.

Editor,

The main threat to American national security interests is in Pakistan, and it is called the ISI.

Fighting the Taliban in Afghanistan is fruitless with the ISI free to spirit fighters back and forth across the border and especially to harbor Taliban and al Qaeda leaders in Quetta and other strongholds in Pakistan.

Taliban foot soldiers in Afghanistan fighting because the Americans killed their cousin or for a reliable meal or because they dislike the Karzai government are not our enemies. Radical leaders with the U.S. in their sights are, and there are only a few thousand of these at most.

A force of 1/2 a million soldiers is not the correct instrument with which to address this threat. We should be making friends with Afghan people who do not cotton to Wahhabism, helping them to infiltrate the Taliban and al Qaeda, and helping them to provide reliable intelligence. Meanwhile we should be acting politically in Pakistan to eliminate ISI support for our enemies and if necessary to eliminate the ISI.

Fighting smart the U.S. can protect its interests and cultivate friends in the region. A huge war machine invading, bombing, occupying can only make matters worse.

re: "Obama Considers Strategy Shift in Afghan War" (9/23/2009)