Afghanistan had, and I am sure still has, the capability of harboring nineteen AQ operatives who are capable of flying jet airplanes into American skyscrapers.
I have never heard Obama refer to the nation of Pakistan as our enemy. Pakistan may have been, and may continue to be our "ally", but they clearly do not have control over large areas of their own territory. It is in THOSE areas that Al Qaeda and Taliban extremists continue to operate freely and where they continue to train the next generations of terrorists who will, at some point, attempt to leave that area and initiate another assault on American soil or American interests.
I have never heard Bush refer to Pakistan or Afghanistan as enemies...and neither country has EVER been incapable of harboring AQ terrorists, in spite of US involvement in either place...
I doubt if that will ever happen unless we are to entirely take full control of those government and act as we please, which is never going to happen.
I firmly believe, that if we had NOT fucked up and invaded Iraq, we would NOT now have this extensive a problem in that area...and the 2007 NIE which states that AQ is just as powerful and capable and dangerous to us as they were on 9/11, primarily because of the Iraq war.
And I have ALWAYS been a war hawk regarding Al Qaeda. You, on the other hand, have ALWAYS been a chickenhawk... perfectly willing to send other people's sons to fight and die for you, but not willing to actually do any fighting yourself. You'll recall, Dixie, that while some of us were content to man the keyboards in the fight against Al Qaeda, some of us actually volunteered to return to active duty to do more than just type about it.
You are my hero...