White House Mulls Grim Picture of 'Deteriorating Stalemate' in Afghanistan

If you study the Political Geography of the area, any sense of cohesiveness within the population dissolves into who lives in what valley or whether they live in agricultural area's or smuggling routes of the mountains. Tribes control area's, make deals with each other, and betray each other. Because of corruption, and an economy based on narcotrade, the reorganization of Afghanistan is impossible. Whenever the US and UN leave, the taliban (which means Government) will pick up where they left off. Nothing will change this place on the earth. Nothing.

Educate thw women who in turn will educate the children then maybe in twenty years the country will fix itself.

the taliban who kicked out the russians would not turn over osama since he was a "guest" in their country. and protecting guest is a big deal read the Koran. there were NO taliban or afghani's on ANY of the 9.11 terror flights. Afghanistan did not attack the United States. Indeed, the 19 men charged with the crime were not Afghans. bush invaded afghanistan and failed to capture osama and even our 60 million dollar reward has not succeeded. imagine 60 million dollars.... no tips. countless lives and trillions have been lost looking for WMD in iraq and osama in afghanistan. almost 90% of the afghani army can NOT read or write. if we left afghanistan the taliban war lords and non taliban war lords would continue to fight it out. that's sad but we can't arrogantly expect to solve everybody's problems. we have a few problems of our own to work on. the only successful invasions of afghanistan were alexander the great in 300bc and then the arab muslims who converted everybody. and then afghanistan was invaded again by the mongols/genghis khan. the british fought 2 wars there and fighting was never ending with bombs and terror tactics galore. during the First Anglo-Afghan War of 1838–1842, and again in the Second Anglo-Afghan War of 1878–1880, both times with the intention of limiting Russian influence in the country, and quelling local tribal leaders. For the entire period, tribal cross-border warfare was constant, and parts of the Pashtun homeland were annexed to British India and referred to as the North-West Frontier Province. the russians invaded in '79 and left, 9 years later, after failing to conquer the taliban in '88. remember we, the US, were supplying the taliban with all manner of advice and weaponry to do bad things to the russians. bush took us in 2001, set up karzhi' "government" (read our own analysts comments about karzhi -- sad -- and we are still there.... folks isn't it time to think about leaving.

Stalemate? Excuse me but the last thing I heard about Afghanistan is that kids were playing with kites instead of AK 47's. Or is that a myth? People aren't being persecuted under a hard line religion. I know our soldiers are going through hell but has anyone asked them why? Why the injured I've heard from want to reenter service? I know lots of people say let it go and bury our heads in the sand. We can't do that because these idiots are out to destroy us. Do we need a city taken out with a nuke? Kahn is in Pakistan under "house" arrest. The door is open and we are obligated to remain there until the job is complete.

Russia has a vested interest not having whacko Islamic militants pumping arms into their Islamic southern communities. Many of the mid east states favor us taking care of their misfits fighting in Afghanistan (better there than home) But then again that is why we are there rather than having more 9/11 situations

So far the Taliban has killed and/or wounded more US troops than there are Taliban in Afghanistan. What's wrong with this picture? What is the strategy that the administration is touting to wear down the Taliban? Have they put it in place yet or they posturing to put it in place, because if it is in place, it certainly isn't working. Karzai and his cronies are getting richer by the minute and the Afghani people are in a haze of knowing what's going on. Majority of the populace don't even know why the Americans are there. They are under the impression that they are an occupying force like the Russians were back in the 80's. We need to either change our strategy and go directly after the Taliban and hit them with everything we have or get the hell out. Karzai and his buds have been riding the gravy train long enough, it's time that it stops and our troops are brought back home.

The politicians who did not object to our shift of war strategy from Afghanistan to Iraq and later pressurized President Obama and supported the surge in Afghanistan should be thrown out of office and charged. This war is not winable till we respect the existance of human beings. We think and believe that Americans only have the God given right to kill anyone for our national interest. If that is the case, then humans have not evolved from barbarianism. It still exists. Lets leave Afghans alone so they can choose whatever they want to do with their resources. If they are smart, they will do the right thing and get help from the modern technologies to develop themselves. They will, if we give them a chance. Now, Lets save more lives ours and Afghans and get the hell out of there.

The Soviet Union wasn't in Afghanistan to route out terrorists. They were there to subjugate the entire country. NATO forces of which we are a part of are there with permission of the Afghan government recognized by the United Nations. If they don't want us there then they need only go to the United Nations and demand that NATO froces leave thier country. Thats the exit strategy we need.

The high cost and dismal failure of the invasion of Afghanistan was the major cause of the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Afghanistan is not the enemy. The Taliban, created by Bush in the 1990's, and led by Bin Laden (also created by Bush), are the ones who need to go back where they came from (our BFF): Saudi Arabia and Pakistan. The Afghan people have been there through thousands of years, and have seen would-be conquerors come and go.