Defining Victory Down

Menon is a bleeding vagina. Though he brings up valid points of the troops to population ratio the fact of the matter is that no one wins if the taliban is allow to continue operations. Caving to he demands of terrorists will only embolded and lead to further recruitment to their numbers, even more so than our not so great PR campain. Creating staggering, bloody losses for the enemy will lessen their ability to sustain any sort of overt operations and degrade their recruiting efforts. Lets not loose sight of what this organization pulled off in 2001.

Nuke 'em till they glow then shoot 'em in the dark.

This is the only way if The US want to peace in the Region, otherwis it will result in a collaps of the US in V nam or more like that of Rusia in Afghanistan, Pakistan and other nighbours will aslo have to a lot if the war continues, its war which the American can NEVER win in The Bettle Field, if they don't want to loss every thing they will have to come to the Table with The Taliban,


Gulzar

This is a wonderful, fresh breath of air approach to really solve the problem. Prior U.S. involvement has been to send troops, troops, and their support, as if it would solve things.
Don't we realize that we are sending our men and women over there to tell the how to run the country. Sure, it's a mess there, and it will be when we do leave. I hope that we and Obama have learned that you can't defeat people in their own country. They have nowhere to go; it's hard of immpossible to tell the good guy from the bad.
How many liives does it cost us to pursue. I suppose that goal is to 'get' Bin Laden, the old cowboy mantallity.

Try and negotiate with moderate elements from T-ban, but from a position of strength. Hitting AQ/T-ban where they live, and operate with impunity may convince the moderate elements. It also may make them mad as hell, and when they expose themselves in battle, get annihilated. P-stani claims of sovereignty are a joke, they have ceded thier lands to a foreign entity, and they are our enemy. Only after they suffer defeat, have massive casualties, and are ejected from A-stan will they think of negotiation. Airstrikes should be ramped up and include manned aircraft, hitting targets all over the tribal areas, maybe even in Quetta. The PAKI's are two faced dogs, and should not get one dime from US taxpayers. A-stan is a tribal society, and Karzai the Corrupt should be REMOVED. Make deals with tribal chiefs, forget about a central gov., it will not work here.

It is the height of folly to think we're going to transform a country whose legacy has seen many world superpowers brought to their knees. I don't really care how we get out, just that we get out of Afghanistan. We need to return to the ways of our founders, who heavily supported commerce with foreign nations, but eschewed political interference of any type. If Obama and company can get us out of this impending disaster post-haste, it will be welcome, celebrated, and among the very few things he's done correctly and for the good of the US.

The entire problem as I see it is that we are attempting to set up an "eastern" culture in a "western" framework. This has about as much of a chance of happening as Americans adopting, a kinship based, "tribal" society that is found in Afghanistan. Our policy makers need to realize that by forcing our system on a people who have lived under an entirely different framework for 1000's of years is not going to work. Mr. Menons Idea of calling for a "Grand Assembly" is one that would work, as it fits into the socio-political framework that already exists in Afghanistan. Americans need to stop viewing their culture as superior to other ways of doing things, and especially stop trying to force it on other peoples "for their own good" . No wonder the rest of the world hates us, we sound like pompous jerks!

Newsweek dsagreeing with Comrade Obama? I thought from reading Newsweek's articles that Obama was messiah. I'm confused. What is interesting is that Obama chooses to be nicey-nicey to 'enemy combatants' by not naming them that anymore, by removing them from Gitmo and other detention facilities, & by giving them legal rights like US citiizens, yet Obama the hypocrite sends more soldiers to Vietnam-like Afghanastan with ruthless Jihadist Muslims where more shooting, maiming, bloodletting, shrapnel wounds, suffering, gunshot wounds, etc will expire on both sides. Is having your arm torn off nicer than waterboarding? Apparantly Obama thinks so.

This is a very sensible article. Unfortunately Karzai has got a different view, Karzai thinks he is king. If Obama listens to Karzai, then Afghanistan will defintely be another Vietnam, another mass grave for the US soldiers. But history will repeat itself because besides Karzai, there are many influencial people in Washington who are war mongers. Karzai is now enjoying the throne. He is daydreaming and wants to continue being King, never mind a puppet king. My bet is the war in Afghanistan will not abate, it will escalate further. The US being the US will continue to pursue its fallacious ambition to be the master of the universe. LOL

afghanistan has a glorious past even as recently as 1980 before the russian invasion when it was far more civilized then india which was a primitive country with medieval attitudes to sexuality and religion steeped in ignorance and massive poverty where a minority pretend to pose as enlightened pretenders .
MR MENON -afghanistan will emerge as the next iran on horizon which will be the source of renaissance in subcontinent from this recent ruin which has been instituted by insensitive and ignorant point of view likes these ,whether you fight or dont fight the terrorists as they are a beautiful ,artistic people who respect their rights and thus understand how to respect others which unfortunately people like you and the arrogant western extremists fighting some so called terrorists have no clue about in essence or in any moral perspective .

Finally, the days are coming to understand ground realities in Afghanistan, though not yet completely. As as Afghan we knew from the day ONE of the establishment of current system in Afghanistan that the International Community is pursuing vague and unrealistic objectives in Afghanistan through adapting half-hearted approach. The United States is ignoring ground realities in Afghanistan by supporting a system and individuals which have already lost their legitimacy. In order to maintain long term strategic friendship with Afghanistan, United States has to be very clear to the people of Afghanistan. In short, the billions of dollars that are being pent on military activities, the precious American lives that are being lost and, most importantly, the time and energy that is being spent to erect a corrupt and inept government, these all should be spent to develop a realistic, Afghan oriented, viable governance and economic system. United States and the international community should rest assure that Afghanistan will never become Alqaida bastion again in history. However, killing Afghan people and expanding military activities will only turn Afghans against the international community and will benefit the enemies of Afghanistan and the the enemies of democracy and those who oppose presence of NATO forces in Afghanistan.