Quote:
Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
Militarily, perhaps, although it would be nice to have (e.g.) Arab faces on the ground in Iraq, not because they shoot better, but politically. Also, intel is an important part of this war, and so we need cooperation from all over. There is a lot more to this than who has special ops forces.
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This point deserves more emphasis. Our overall Arabic language skills are pretty mediocre, and the decision to fight in Iraq as well as the way the Iraqi occupation has been handled leads the Arabic countries to keep their distance. We need strong, fully committed Arab allies in the war on terror - winning it without them is far more difficult. Note that in Afghanistan, we had troops from Central Asia, Pakistan, the Caucasian states, and the Middle East (I don't believe any from the Magrheb).
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