The simple answer is yes...what we are doing now is totally disconnected from what we went in there to (and did) do in 2001.

Regardless of the porice paid in blood and treasure to date, Afghanistan will never be any more a functional nation in the sense that we understand the concept than will Libya if the socalled rebels there get to takeover...

Watching the riots in London last week over cuts to public services and David Cameron stating how necessary there are as the UK is broke, my wife asked a simple question: if you're broke, why keeping getting into wars? A good question when the next news items was on the 'NATO' intervention/meddling in Libya...

The West is bankrupting itself fighting things that pose little or no threat to it and for people who really could care less...it's well past time to withdraw, regroup and RETHINK before we go haring off on any more morally-driven crusades...

While I don't agree with the case for the initial invasion of Iraq, more power to the US for staying the course and seeing that war through to a logical conclusion. But Afghanistan is not Iraq and the central government approach that worked in Iraq has no more chance of succeeding in Afghanistan than attempting to inflict a new religion on that nation...

The real question is not whether to start pulling out but what will we do for all those people in Afghanistan to whom we have promised better (in a western understanding) lives...