This article is representative of liberal elitism that only people in select (not all) urban centers are real people and everyone else is some lesser life form. Militarily, defending scattered 'castles' is hopeless. Politically, cedeing all the map except for a few dots is ludicrous. Morally, abandoning all the people outside the elite chosen areas is just wrong. Welcome to the 'elite change we can believe in'- you are only a true person if you live in elite designated ,urban settings. Otherwise-go to hell.

Your concern for the people of Afghanistan living in the countryside, considering you wanted to nuke Vietnam back to the Stone Age, is so very touching! Really touching!

You must do fact checking for CNN- where in the world did I want to nuke Viet Nam? In fact, Viet Nam was lost because the DEMOCRATIC POTUS Johnson used the very strategy this article espouses-cede the country and hold the cities and scattered strongpoints while getting a lot of troups killed on useless raids and encounter battles.

You are criticizing as "liberal elitism" the very strategy Bush & Co. followed for seven years. You appear to be much too much in love with thoughtless right wing cliches.

You do realize, don't you, that most right-wing catch phrases are either hopelessly out of date or are simply absurd to the point of being non sequitors. "Liberal elite" abandoning the people outside the elite chosen... You have ascribed to 'liberal' foreign policy precisely the domestic policies of the Corporate Right. You must see the irony. The Right has this odd habit of ascribing their own sins to their opponent, like recently inventing the concept of "liberal fascism" about the same time YOU were operating off-shore torture camps and wiretapping all of America.

Siempre is obviously a US farmer and thus he sympathizes with the beleaguered farmers of Afghanistan. He don't like big city metrosexuals like Obama in the USA and he don't want that sort of person running things for the hard working agriculturalists in Afghanistan and their valuable crop.

Bush's strategy was wrong the first years also. You cannot win a war without enough troups to hold the territory or you fight the same battles over and over. But it is liberals who call all the US between NY and LA 'flyover country' and it is liberals who repeat that the US center is stupid and see the rest of the world the same way. Bush and the surge succeeded when he turned away from the 'flyover' concept and put enough troops to control districts. All the people in all the territories have to be supported or you leave a power center from which the enemy regrows.

I've heard plenty of conservatives, including those on Fox, call middle America 'flyover" country. I was actually paying attention to your posts until this load of crap. I wonder what your screed against liberals and flyover states has to do with Afghanistan anyway.

If Bush's surge (whatever that was) was successful, why was Afghanistan still in bad condition when he left office? Fox News noted a small "surge" at the end of 08. Don't you think that was a bit late to accomplish much?