Ah, but you see, you have to remember what elements are actually "winning" this war; the drug dealers and the banks who launder the drug money, and the defense contractors, providing mercenaries and logistical support!

The rest of these brave men and women are simply expendable, grist for the mill of empire, who, the administration hopes, will die rather than have to be taken care of medically for the rest of their lives should they get seriously injured.

There is absolutely no metric by which this war could ever have been characterized as a military "victory", and the leadership in the previous and present administrations understood this very clearly.

The US and NATO high command were simply so embarrassed by how badly, and consistently, they were losing, that they couldn't think of anything to do other than continue what was so obviously not working.

Doing the same thing over and over again, yet expecting a different outcome, is one of the classic definitions of mental illness, which, unfortunately, can affect not only individuals, but groups as well. That is, apparently, what has happened here.

We should not wait until 2013 to leave; waiting that interval will not ultimately change the outcome, which will be a very ticked off Taliban leadership, again in control of the pipeline routes which the Bush administration considered "too expensive" to pay for, but decided they could actually control as the outcome of a war.

What utter fools!!!