The reality is that your way has failed. Miserably. Wasted lives, money, credibility, everything.

Anything would be better that what has been demonstrated to not work. That's obvious. As far as how do go about winning, for starters listen to Karzai. He's begging to tell us how to win that situation.

Second, read any Oriental author on how to win guerilla wars. Their methods are cheaper, faster and save lifes.

Because, bottom line, your way is counterproductive in the extreme. It creates the conditions is says it seeks to obliterate.

However, it requires two things Conservatives have shown themselves reluctant to do: listen, and learn.

And, for the hell of it, how safe is Kandahar? Kabul? The countrysides around them? Travel between the two? How much opium is being grown in the South? What is being done to create conditions which make it possible for those guys to grow something else?

Arf