I don't care whether we could bring democracy. I said I didn't disagree with Joel's point on the likelihood of that. I do have some disagreement on how "gone" the Taliban will be, even when we feel we've finished the job and gone home; however, neither of the above is THE point, though the latter is close. I also firmly believe that this topic/post is not the proper place to get muddled up in a de-constructed argument about it.

No offense to either of you, but it was a terrible thing for the marines to do, period, but especially coming from people who are there for the reasons we claimed. I don't agree that you get to ignore those stated reasons now just because you know/knew they were unlikely to be accomplished. But feel free to continue on with each other if you want.