100,000 Soldiers Used as Chips in a Bet We Can't Win

So far, our war in Afghanistan has claimed more than one thousand American lives, and recently the lives of more than four thousand Afghan civilians. It is also costing the American taxpayer over three-and-a-half BILLION dollars every month, a total of $264 billion so far, without positive results. Meanwhile, Hamid Karzai, our American potentate "de jour" is becoming more and more unstable behind the wheel of his ship. Now, he is even making THREATS against the western coalition which is shedding its sons' blood and treasure on his behalf. The pro-American "Economist" magazine sees things much more clearly, questioning whether our entire effort in Afghanistan has been nothing than a meaningless exercise of misguided violence. Andrew Bacevich, who served 23 years in our army, some of them in Vietnam, and who is now professor of history and international relations at Boston University, questions whether we have strayed much to far from the path we might successfully have followed in Afghanistan: One of the core principles in our adventure would have required that we behave in ways which would demonstrate our benign intentions - that we were there to protect the country's population.
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