As if we needed any more reasons to like Alan Grayson, here's this (via Think Progress):
Last month, Rep. Alan Grayson (D-FL) spoke at an event sponsored by Brave New Films' "Rethink Afghanistan" project. Grayson told the audience that he's been to 175 countries and that he has come to the conclusion that the best foreign policy is to "leave people alone"...
This reinforces Matthew Hoh's comments about Afghanistan to Fareed Zakaria this weekend:
HOH: I firmly believe that we are taking part in a civil war. We are on the same side of the civil war that the Soviets intervened on.
ZAKARIA: So, you have a divide among the Pashtuns. There’s the urban middle class. And Karzai, presumably, who is a Pashtun, comes from this urban middle class.
HOH: Correct.
ZAKARIA: Many of them left the country after the — during the years of the civil war. And the ones who have stayed to fight, who fought the Soviet Union and who are now fighting us, are the rural, mountain tribe Pashtuns who resent the central government and its intrusions.
HOH: Who want to be left alone.
As far as legitimate security concerns go about protecting the US from terrorists who might return to Afghanistan, a basic counterterrorism strategy like this could deal with it, using 7000-13000 troops and without having to create a country where there's never been one and remake the multiple societies that inhabit the region - a fool's errand if there's ever been one.