Obama's War -- A Commentary

ENEMIES Opium income feeds the Taliban.
Nicolas Asfouri/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Fearing Another Quagmire in Afghanistan -- New York Times

When you’re wounded and left on Afghanistan’s plains
And the women come out to cut up what remains
Jest roll to your rifle and blow out your brains
An’ go to your Gawd like a soldier.
—Rudyard Kipling, “The Young British Soldier,” 1892

WASHINGTON — Can President Obama succeed in that long-lamented “graveyard of empires” — a place that has crushed foreign occupiers for more than 2,000 years?

Ever since the Bush administration diverted its attention — and resources — to the war in Iraq from the war in Afghanistan, military planners and foreign policy experts have bemoaned the dearth of troops to keep that country from sliding back into Taliban control. And in that time, the insurgency blossomed, as Taliban militants took advantage of huge swaths of territory, particularly in the south, that NATO troops weren’t able to fill.

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My Comment: Surprise ... surprise. A sober assessment from the New York Times. A must read.