The Taliban and Afghanistan

http://www.voanews.com/english/2009-09-11-voa10.cfm

This article from the Voice of America points out that the Taliban now has a viable presence in at least 80% of Afghanistan. It is no wonder that General Stanley McChrystal is painting such a gloomy picture. A year ago, the Taliban was an important force in about half of Afghanistan and today that presence is increasing. Is there any possiblilty that we can change that? I personally do not think that is the case regardless of General McChrystal's "new strategy".

As we are slowly learning, keeping small groups of American troops is very isolated areas has done little more than offer them up for sacrifice. Many of these areas are so remote that everything must be flown in by helicopter--food, water, ammunition, toilet paper, you name it. And when things get hot, support is often some time away and in short supply. In 1840, the British lost 16,000 men, women and children, civilian and military as they tried to abandon Afghanistan. One military physician survived and it is believed that was on purpose in order to send a message to the British. Are we going to wait until we have lost 16,000 people before we figure out that Afghanistan is not worth the loss of so many young men and women? The Russians spent ten years and had as many as 106,000 personnel in Afghanistan and finally left. Are we going to continue down that same path?

Falling back and protecting the major population areas seems to me to say that we are willing to give up most of Afghanistan to our avowed enemy. To try to train an army and national police force of several hundred thousand seems to be a waste of energy, time and money. Afghanistan can't support such a force for the long haul. The world at large would have to spoon feed billions or perhaps trillions of dollars into a place that has nothing to offer as a return on the investment. We don't need more opium and we have enough sand and rocks. Afghanistan is for Afghanis--they are going to have to figure out what it is they want to be and who they want to rule them. This is no longer our fight.