If there is an exact location marking the West’s failures in Afghanistan, it is the modest police checkpoint that sits on the main highway 20 minutes south of Kabul. The post signals the edge of the capital, a city of spectacular tension, blast walls, and standstill traffic. Beyond this point, Kabul’s gritty, low-slung buildings and narrow streets give way to a vast plain of serene farmland hemmed in by sandy mountains. In this valley in Logar province, the American-backed government of Afghanistan no longer exists.
Instead of government officials, men in muddied black turbans with assault rifles slung over their shoulders patrol the highway, checking for thieves and “spies.” The charred carcass of a tanker, meant to deliver fuel to international forces further south, sits belly-up on the roadside.
20 minutes south? In Denver, 20 minutes doesn't get me out of the city. In Kabul, that's the limits of what's controlled by the US and the puppet government?
Gee, I guess that's why the other article is talking more like any new troops go into Kabul to help stave off the insurgents than in any big new campaign to 'win' the war.
And, when was the last time an outside power 'won' a war in Afghanistan? Russians, nope. British, nope.
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