Is afghanistan a-goner?

[Doctor_J]

I just saw a crawl that seemed to say that af is back in the hands of some combination of UBL and the Taliban, that our soldiers that are there have retreated. Did Boy George's ridiculous ego trip to Iraq cost us afghanistan?

[Nite Owl]

1. Heard something about that

earlier this afternoon on MSNBC and briefly on Olberman. Seems like they have taken over again and the drug trade is now worse than before. Iraq is as good as lost too. All the lives, all the money for a failure of an administration. Their buddies are quite a bit richer though!

[stavka]

2. Afghanistan has always been a land of warlords....

It's geography and poverty make it so.

Only the outside support of Saudi Arabia and Pakistan allowed the Taliban to come to dominant power in the late 90's and even then a pretty solid resistance to their rule existed in Norther and Western Afghanistan existed.

There was an attempt made by Al-Queda to end this resistance by killing its leader on September 10th, 2001.

The country has returned to the warlord system, the "government" is simply the warlord (Karsai) that rules the capital and enjoys the favor and strength of the US military garrison.

The other warlords can't count on air power and carrier strike groups, so they don't interfere with the "government" if it doesn't bother them.

-or their heroine production/income (really poppy)

The key is to keep the country open for the Caspian Sea oil line.

Nothing else matters.

If the Taliban start to make trouble that matters - they will be blasted out of existence. Pokes don't count.

Iraq is a much more fertile plain. More cities, shorter distances, more money, eager recruits.

Afghanistan is by virtue of its encyclopedic entry, a failure.

[DeepModem Mom]

3. Abandoned once more -- nt