Taliban rising...

You don't hear much from the White House or its trained seals in the media about Afghanistan. It's unsurprising they don't want to talk about it. Last we we heard they were claiming victory and holding the country up as an fine example of "democracy on the march." Unfortunately, that darn war just won't stay won. The central government hasn't managed to exert power much beyond Kabul in the last four years and it's quickly becoming a whole new disaster.

As fighting in Afghanistan has intensified over the past three months, the U.S. military has conducted 340 airstrikes there, more than twice the 160 carried out in the much higher-profile war in Iraq, according to data from the Central Command, the U.S. military headquarters for the Middle East.

The Taliban and AQ own the south of the country and they've learned their lessons well from watching events unfold in Iraq. They have adapted their strategy to cause the most damage to our world status. By retreating to civilian populated areas during firefights, even if they get killed themselves, collateral civilian deaths that inevitably occur, serve to breed anger against our presence among the indigineous people and function as a recruiting tool for the terror organizations who offer protection and revenge. Furthermore, with the heroin trade on the rise, and the US sponsored eradication efforts causing great hardship for already impoverished peasants, the dealers, the people and the terrorists are banding together for their common defense.

If this is what winning looks like, I surely don't want to see what losing is. Tell me again, how Afghanistan was the one thing that Bush did right....