[FRPLG]

Everyone has brought up good points. Essentially it all comes down to oil. The region (Afghanistan is a good example) is simply an unstable region. Very factional and culturally difficult to control. We only care about the region because of oil, they only dislike us because of things we have done because of oil, we're only there because of oil. It all comes back to oil. It is why the energy policy of our nation is of such importance. Forget all the crunchy-granola peace-pipe propaganda about the climate...plain and simple oil is going to put our country in its grave if we don't figure out how to not need it.

As for Afghanistan, the biggest mistake that's been made, and the same error made in Iraq, was the definition of our goals. Dumdum Bush and his administration had this ridiculous notion that they could sell a war in the middle east as a simple national security issue.One that could be solved via toppling of a few despots in the region and some mild rebuilding. Voila! Stability. In fact the stability of the region, by our definition and for our own benefit, will only come from a protracted presence of our own troops. This has always been the case. There never was a magic bullet strategy for going in, doing the job and getting out. The JOB is to be there. Removing the Taliban was th easy excuse but ultimately bullcrap. It was simply step one in a decades long list of things we need to do there. That's what we committed ourselves to with the first bullet. Decades. Most Americans didn't know this but our politicians, Dems and Reps both, sure knew it. And if there were a few that didn't then they're dumdum donkey idiots. If we're going to be there, and we can't leave, then we need to send every single troop that's needed. I'd rather we send an extra 40k, 100k or a million if we had it and cut down the casualties. Otherwise we're stuck executing Rumsfeld's ill-fated strategy of light and fast which as we've found out actually means half-assed and dangerously.