Hey there OB, yes I did read your article, and I agree with much of what you say.   I believe the make-up of the people and country of Afghanistan (illiterate, fiercely independant, warlike, tribal, welded to their own religious and cultural traditions) will require a unique response from any invader. Because of who they are, anybody from outside will always be an invader.   The unique responses that might succeed would require many years of work, a new paradigm for implementation and a tremendous amount of $$$.   The US (highly literate but misguided by our academics and our media, softly dependent, warlike-only on the X-box level, democratic-we'll elect anybody so long as they have good hair and an engaging smile, and abandoning our traditions for tattoos and yoga) has not proven itself capable of supplying these things.   Do you actually believe this gov't., which will not even secure it's own borders, can thoughtfully organize and carry out a multi-generational plan to bring peace and security to the Afghans?  Do you think this Congress and this POTUS will ignore the groaning of so many out of work voters and continue to pour-in the resources for a conventional war?   Your citation of our successes in Europe, Japan and Korea don't apply as easily to a fragmented Tribal society. For those models to work, you need a USA with the 'we can do this' attitude of the great generation that accomplished those feats of sacrifice and valor. The young people you are surrounded with may be willing, I wonder if the rest of the country is.       I see an interesting parallel:   When the Spanish drove north from what is now called Mexico, the Franciscans created a thriving economy involving the Indiginous tribes in agriculture, sheep-herding, and rudimentary manufacturing for trade. They built a mission society that largely survived after the Spanish had to recall their troops (for political and economic reasons). The Indians, Christianized and introduced to systems of organization and production previously unknown to them, didn't return (for the most part) to their old lifestyles. Whether by Spirit or by material gain they were converted.   When the Europeans drove west from the Eastern Forests of the New World, they killed or transplanted any indigenous peoples who didn't 'get with the new program'. Those Tuscaroras and Chippewas who chose to fight chose death because a stronger culture was bringing it on, as sure as a tsunami.   In both cases the tribal lands and practices were supplanted by something new and arguably better. The dead warriors and scalped homesteaders might have liked the chance to rethink the plan, but they're not here to complain, are they.     I just don't think the US has the sense or the will to do what the Fransiscans did...and we certainly don't have the balls to do what Daniel Boone did. What you are proposing is, in some ways, akin to the Spanish Mission success, except you'll let the Indians keep their religion.    I do agree with your position that we must engage Islam, but I think it is necessary for our survival, not theirs.     I want to keep up this dialog if you have the time...you have a unique perspective and I think you should put it out there where more can see it.   Right now I have to get to some less philosophical tasks...we'll chat again real soon I hope.   Ever and Always, Jay     Jay, No!  Pulling out is morally and strategically wrong.  We need to engage Islam (Obama is correct on this point) but from a position of strength.  We need to leverage Islamic leadership in its mainstream, orthodox form (what the media wrongly calls 'moderate' Islam - an insult to devout Muslims).  We have NO CHOICE.  We are already engageed with many Muslim nations as allies - to betray those alliances is diplomatic suicide.    The brave fighers in Afghanistan deserve political leadership that recognizes the WINNABILITY of Afghanistan with the counterinsurgency strategy AND the long term commitment to economic partnership that we have succeeded with in Germany, Japan and Korea.  Afghanistan is only a lost cause if we lose our political will to back American Exceptionalism; we CAN where GB and the USSR couldn't.  But we MUST return to a Declaration/Consitutional view of humanity in order to see the Afghan people the same way we viewed the Korean people 60 years ago as worthy of long-term support.   Did you read my article?   Good Morning Old Boot,   I just finished my first reading of these documents: very engaging stuff. I have to read them over again to take-in more of the detail...the alphabet soup of military nomenclatures is a lot like Pashtun to me.   If what I'm reading is true, then we really have no effective option other than to pull out. The US forces aren't going to be building any nation in Afghanistan...Afghanistan can't even build a nation there. I don't see any clear direction from this US administration in the increasingly dangerous global scene....and much of the global trouble is complicated by the Muslim ascendancy. Could it be that our 'boy-leader' is going to show himself as more inept in his international efforts than in his domestic?      If we do pull out, however, we would finally make the media's wishes come true, and this war will finally look like like Viet Nam: more American lives pissed away by a Government that doesn't know what it wants to do.    That's the only reason I'm glad Jackson isn't going the commisioning route at VMI. It's also one of the reasons I have so much respect for you-all who are in it all the time. Think how easy it would be to fight only one enemy, and with clear directives (ROI's) that free you up to do what you've been trained to do.   I don't want to become an idolater...I don't want my sense of patriotism to blind me to God's plan for me as one of His children, or His call to bring the word of Salvation to all nations.   Lots to pray about.   Keep the Faith Old Boot, and pass the ammunition.   Jay    Jay, First, he decries the past stategy as a misdiagnosis of the secular, Kabul government against the rural religion Pashtun insurgency.  The fact is, leaders like Mr. Hoh have likewise attempted to fram Afhanistan as narco-terror, insurgency, failure of governance, civil war, etc... everything except what it is - a religious war between conflicting visions of Islam.    Our own myopic and stridently antireligious government has studiously avoided defining the conflict as such.  We appear no better than the godless USSR to most Afghans because of this ill-conceived posture that nearly all Afghans reject - remember, to achieve 'victory' in a counterinsurgency the supported host nation must 'win' by legitimizing the government on the people's terms.    The real way to achieve stability in Afghanistan is to back the orthodox Islamic scholars who hold the real reins of power in Afghanistan.  But our government cannot fathom supporting a religious establishment even though Muslims do not, will not, and can not separate the Mosque from the state.  We try to force-feed our political philosophy to Afghans and the clerics denounce us on Fridays in the mosque sermon.  The Friday sermon is the most powerful communications platform in Afghanistan.   I have attached an article I submitted to a Military Journal last month on how we nearly lost in Iraq for the same reasons.  I hope you get a chance to look it over.    There can be no victory of any kind in a Muslim society, no matter how backward, provincial or hostile to what we deem progress without the support and endorsement of the Islamic scholars and rank and file Mosque preachers.  We have failed utterly because of our own antreligious bias, and it is in some way the judgment of God that we are losing in Afghanistan - in the long term historical perspective, they may be more righteous than we are  just as God delivered Judah over the Nebuchadnezzar in 587 BC.  A post-Christian society is far more susceptible to failure than a Muslim society at least commited to monotheism and a religious society.   Old Boot