There's a distinction between the "good" Taliban and "bad" Taliban. Various local leaders previously aligned with the Taliban have been willing in the past to cut deals with the government. However such distinctions are very fast and loose. A "good" Taliban is someone who's willing to deal with the local government. "Bad" Taliban are those who are unwilling to acknowledge the legitimacy of the political system. About half the country falls under the control of the "bad" Taliban, mainly the southern Pashtun regions.

When a government can't control more than half its territory, I think you have the definition of a failed state. Afghanistan falls under this category and there is nothing the United States can do to remedy the situation, as the problem is not military, but political in nature.

As for al-Qaeda, I find it very interesting that ABC News came out with an article today suggesting that several intelligence agencies claim that there are only 100 al-Qaeda fighters left in Afghanistan. This after President Obama claimed in his prime time speech on Tuesday that they were a critical threat and a cancer in Afghanistan.

Here's the link to the article: http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/president-obamas-secret-100-al-qaeda-now-afghanistan/story?id=9227861

Note that Obama's major justification for the surge was al-Qaeda's continued presence in the country. Al-Qaeda as a political movement has been waining in influence for the past few years. A lack of leadership along with the loss of public/private sponsors has deemed it moribund. Now given that al-Qaeda was responsible for the 9/11 attacks, and the original purpose of our invasion of Afghanistan was to bring to justice the leadership of that terrorist group, why then do we continue to occupy that country without a discernible security interest at stake?

Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan is no longer a threat, yet we continue to pour billions of dollars into this war, while government officials continue to misrepresent the nature of the threat al-Qaeda and the Taliban poses to the American public. Didn't Barack Obama run against this type of fear mongering that the Bush Administration readily engaged in?? I'm deeply disappointed in Obama, although not too surprised.

The President's mind was clearly made up from the get-go to escalate the conflict in Afghanistan and Pakistan. The deliberations earlier this year was for domestic political consumption. The American public is in no way threatened by the Taliban, which at this point is a nationalist movement united in one objective, to remove the United States from their territory. Nothing more. In my view, the hostilities will subside once the United States leaves the country. The Afghans can figure out their political fate through their Loya Jergas and other political institutions.

That will be the outcome of this matter sooner or later. Might as well let them fly now. The United States is at this point sitting in the middle of a civil conflict between different tribal groups. We can save ourselves billions of dollars and the lives of our military personnel in the process by pulling out and allowing them to resolve their political fates on their own. I'm a strong advocate of self-determination.

As for the geopolitical interests in Afghanistan, the cost of maintaining these operations over the next few years is not worth the benefit of maintaining a strategic outpost in Central Asia. Such ambitions have weakened strong empires in the past (in the case of Afghanistan, both Great Britain and the USSR suffered huge losses playing geopolitics in the region) and it is doing the same to the United States. This was an ill conceived strategy from the beginning, yet policy makers are not willing to correct or adjust their original mistakes. Attribute it to arrogance, hubris, an unwillingness to acknowledge our true power position in the region and in the world.

This could get real interesting. Apparently the Saudi's are acting to broker a peace between the Taliban and the Afgani government, with a view to ending the conflict between them. This, coming on the heels of the U.K.'s military commander in Afganistan saying the war there is unwinnable, and pressure mounting in both Canada and the U.K. to withdraw troops, adds a new twist to an already twisted situation.

Stay tuned, kids. This is not only a bit on the unexpected side, but could play out to the advantage of alot of people, most importantly those in Afghanistan.