* Iran * Afghanistan

GARETH PORTER
Porter recently wrote the piece "Is Gates Undermining Another Opening to Iran?"

Porter is following the Iran envoy issue. He is an investigative historian and journalist specializing in U.S. national security policy and author of the book "Perils of Dominance: Imbalance of Power and the Road to War in Vietnam."More Information

RAY McGOVERN
McGovern was a CIA analyst for 27 years and is on the Steering Group of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity. He wrote the piece"Gates and the Urge to Surge."

He said today: "The Afghan tribes still brag about giving Alexander the Great a really hard time 2,500 years ago. Alexander had the good sense to leave, even though Afghanistan lay inconveniently between his army and the prize of China. It was simply not worth the losses his army was incurring from those incorrigible 'militants,' who did not wish to be invaded. Since then, Indians, Persians, Monglians, the British and Russians have tried and failed to subdue Afghanistan. In 1839 an entire army of British invaders was massacred by those darned militants. Learning nothing from history, the Soviets tried and failed 140 years later.

"So the U.S. is going to try now? With Vietnam and Iraq now added to the history book, we are going to send thousands more into the Afghan mountains? You can't even get there from here! Oh, great; our Army is going to depend on supply lines through Russia? There must be something in the water in Washington."

McGovern works with Tell the Word, the publishing arm of the ecumenical Church of the Saviour in inner-city Washington. His most recent piece is "What's CIA Director Hayden Hidin'?"