I hope we get out ASAP NC. We should have cut ties years ago. Bush should have hit them and left and Obama's surge was a waste of lives and $$. Unfortunately as crazy as Karzai is he will sign the deal at the last minute. The Taliban is doing the same thing they and their forefathers have done since time immemorial never stop fighting and killing the strangers till they give up and leave. Did you read The Daily Beast article? They are like a Timex...they just keep on ticking....
I don't doubt their resilience. If nothing else, those fuckers could wait out Job. Economically and Militarily, I wish we could just get out also. That said, as I've said before, being the world's only superpower, we have to save face as best as possible to make it appear that we are leaving on our own terms. You and I and every one with half a brain knows that those people aren't going to start being good democratized capitalists tomorrow who live by the rule of law.....hasn't happened since the dawn of mankind and we ain't changing that. I hope you are wrong about Karzai but my gut says you are right. I am, however, happy that we are bringing home the vast bulk of our troops there next year. Ten thousand is a whole lot better than 100,000.
Here is a cautionary tale for those who believe there is an easy road to peace in the Middle East. In Ireland a modern society the enmities of over 400 years are still fresh in the hearts and minds of the people. Remember it was less than 20 years ago there was terrorist bombing and army rule in the seven counties of Northern Ireland. This pales in comparison to what is happening in the ME. The multi tiered religious, tribal and social conflicts are thousands of years old and deeply embedded. Violence had only been suppressed by brutal authoritarian rule that is now fracturing in the Arab Spring. http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/storie...ME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2013-12-31-05-31-58
Another cautionary tale that punctures the fallacy that the drone war is a pinpoint clean method to eliminate terrorists. http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/dec/29/drones-us-military
