http://www.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUSTRE58K0GI20090921

<quotes>

More troops or Afghan war lost: U.S. commander

KABUL (Reuters) - The Afghan war will be lost unless more troops are sent to 
pursue a radically revised strategy, the top U.S. and NATO commander said in 
a confidential assessment that lays out stark choices for President Barack 
Obama.

In the assessment, sent to Washington last month and leaked on Monday, Army 
General Stanley McChrystal said failure to reverse "insurgent momentum" in 
the near term risked an outcome where "defeating the insurgency is no longer 
possible."

"Resources will not win this war, but under-resourcing could lose it," 
McChrystal wrote. "Failure to provide adequate resources also risks a longer 
conflict, greater casualties, higher overall costs and ultimately, a 
critical loss of political support. Any of these risks, in turn, are likely 
to result in mission failure."

</quotes>

Seems hard to me to equate a vision of "winning in Afghanistan" in a war 
which has taken eight years and stands on the brink of failure.

"Eight years", and against what !? A "bunch of rag-headed peasants living in 
the stone age", I've heard claimed more than once. Either America 
under-estimated its chosen enemy or it over-estimated its own capabilities, 
and perhaps did both.

If an unprofessional, untrained, amateur insurgency can keep American 
victory at bay for eight years with generals fearing forthcoming defeat, 
those countries which have professional, fully trained militaries and the 
military infrastructure to back them up must be considering US forces and US 
military projection as somewhet over-rated. To say the least.

With, 'we either lose or throw more troops into the fray', it's paralleling 
Vietnam even more as time goes on. War in Iraq and Afghanistan may well 
prove to be ventures the US should never have embarked upon. Plenty of 
people warned that would be so.