Pat, you're missing the point. Islam is a defective religion. There can be no peace with Muslims, because there will always be at least a small percentage of them who will follow the teachings of Muhammed that orders them to kill us. With nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction becoming more widely available, this is a risk that we cannot tolerate. At the very least, we need to separate ourselves from them completely. Diversity that includes Muslims is suicide.

Everything the FAC says is true. We Americans know that the Brits have more experience with foreign affairs and diplomacy in general, so we certainly take their criticism seriously, but let's use this rift to get to the meat of the issue in Afghanistan. Afghanistan has always been a tough nut to deal with militarily, and the U.S. invaded it reluctantly, but we had to take out Al Qaida's main base. The real problem with getting a permanent peace is that Pakistan is a never-ending source of fighters and weapons. Pakistan is nuclear armed and volatile, so we may never get a handle on ridding Afghanistan of its insurgency. Until the world figures out a way to rid itself of nuclear weapons, or until the major powers (and who are they, really?) figure out how to rid the minor powers of nuclear weapons, we're stuck with an unsolvable problem. Everybody's scared to death that some idiot will use a nuclear weapon, or else allow one to slip into the hands of international terrorists. So, really, the best we might be able to hope for in Afghanistan is that an international coalition is able to keep the Taliban and Al Qaida from reaquiring it.