<And, if there are 10,000 dead Americans in Afghanistan, and still al Qeada and Taliban forces ambushing the isolated outpost, I think Americans would get discouraged. Given the terrain, tribal alliances and history, I believe that is more than possible. I don't know how you would ever "pacify" that country short of "relocating" every darned last one.

A good point, but I think a lot depends on outlook. If you think of it more like crimefighting, and not so much as a "war," getting to the point where the Al Quaeda infrastructure and organization has been broken up (hopefully without 10,000 American dead) might be considered a victory--along the lines of wrecking organized crime in Chicago, but still having to deal with people getting mugged at ATM machines.

Destroying Al Quaeda's ability to engage in any organized terrorist acts against U.S. interests, particularly ones that take a lot of money, would be at least an intermediate victory. This doesn't mean that the occasional clump of terrorists won't scrape together enough dynamite to bomb an embassy or a building in the U.S., but like you say, short of genocide or setting up a police state in America, there is probably no way to totally prevent such individualized actions.

We also have to take into account the effect that this war is having on other nations which up until now may have been less than concerned about terrorist camps in their country, if not actively supporting them. The destruction of the Taliban cannot have been entirely lost on them.