Sylvan:

I don't doubt that there would be a lot of internal unhappiness to be resolved by Afghans under a "Make the Afghans solve their own problems" approach.

They have a Popalzai in Office in Kabul, and another as shadow governor in Kandahar. How is that working out for them?

I don't mean to be flippant, but there is a point at which either they own us, and we own their problems----or they own their own problems and rapidly engage in solving them.

There are no solutions to Afghanistan's internal political/civilian governance problems to which our military can be a deciding factor, and, as the scorecard shows, few remaining US critical problems left unresolved.

West's proposal was that we work with the local folks who will work with us, and leave the rest to talk among themselves (but without US assistance or financial aid).

Personally, I witnessed to many foolish endeavors in Iraq with US taxpayer dollars literally flushed down a toilet by well-meaning but misguided efforts to intervene in Iraqi domestic problems.

Last week, Salah ad Din's Deputy Governor was interviewed about the Iraqi elections, and I remembered his very cogent explanation of why Iraq did not need US built schools (if they wanted them, they would have built them themselves, at much less cost and much better quality). Instead, what he really wanted was a civilian airport, the final construction contract for which was just let (to an American contractor): a completely Iraqi funded project.

Certainly, Afghanistan lacks the resources of Iraq, but that does not mean that we do them favors by bringing US projects to insulate them from the political/governance problems of their own country.

Reading these reports of soldiers being directed to wandering through Afghan villages like lonely Santa Clauses (Need any wells? How about a couple of schools?) under the Clear-Hold-Bribe strategy is just not going to produce significant results consistent with US timetables.

Between William Polk's very good article in The Nation on the futility of such efforts, and the London Conference report on essentially the same matters and conclusions, it seems like a good time to put down a different kind of gauntlet. Tough love or otherwise.

My opinion.