US Deaths make 2009 deadliest year for Nato in Afghanistan

Reaper,

I agree that he inherited this war. Why is it still going on? He has been in power for 8 months and is increasing, not decreasing, the number of troops. Hence my calling it "Obama's War." Ditto for Iraq.

sam what do you mean obama's war? this is bush's war obama inherted this war from bush that along with the iraq in case you forgot that. im here to remind you.

Where are all the Obama heads when they are needed to defend this expansion of Bush policies? Strange silence from the hope and changers. Where is the march on Washington for "Obama's War?"

The first and second crusades didn't go anywhere near Afghanistan, none of them did.

And Alexander the Great made it to the Indus river, welll past Afghanistan. He even used them as his troops because they were so tough.

And the only person that ever actually beat Ghengis Khan was Sultan Baybars, the Afghans got trashed just like everyone else. That's why one of their oppressed ethnic minorities has Asian features.

The USSR lost in Afghanistan because WE funded a bunch of tough mlitiamen who died by the TRUCKLOADS to repel their invasion. Plus, their goal was unattainable. No one wanted a communist government in their country and they certainly weren't going to bend over for a nation that destroyed most of their infrastructure.

The bottom line is that we have bullshit troops in Afghanistan, now and before. It is utterly ridiculous to think that a nation could be controlled with asl ittle as 57,000 troops. You'd need at least 200,000 and probably 3 or 4 to be effective.

The Taliban won Afghanistan because the people were tired of warlords, but there was also nothing else for them to do! The only feasible jobs IN Afghanistan are warlording or growing opium. For Christ's sake, people dig up, disable and sell LANDMINES for a living.

And you want to leave an occupation that's barely started because what, we have a few casualties? I don't to diminish the loss of life to those who have died, but barely any have! Sure, we're not winning Afghanistan right now objectively, but we are definitely not getting our asses kicked on the battlefield.

All that's going to happen right now if we leave is a repeat of the civil war that devastated this country so badly. All the troops that have fought there there would have done so in vain and we would leave that fertile soil for more terrorists group to sprout up with a new base of followers from an Afghan populace that would never forgive us, even if they didn't like us before, for leaving in the middle of our operation.

Trampling over this issue as if it's as simple as Iraq was is lunacy and it has for more awful consequences.

The Afghan fighters are some of the toughest, high altitude, cave dwelling warriors the world has ever known. Nobody beast them on their home turf, NOBODY.....not Ghingus Khan, not Alexander the Great, not the Christians (Crusade one and two). We used them in a proxy war to exhaust the resources of Mother Russia for Christ's sake and now Iran and Al Qaeda are doing the same thing to US. The only effective tool against terrorism is education and it takes about 30 years. Obama needs to get with the Powell Doctrine(overwhelming force, 500,000 troops and carpet bomb the country until it looks like one big parking lot) and start drafting people to fight or he needs to pull out completely. Afghanistan is a lose/lose/lose.