Much of the news coming out of the Afghanistan theater suggests that we're losing the war there to a resurgent Taliban. Strategy Page tells us that much of this reportage is the result of the media being "played" by the Taliban whose circumstances may be much more dire than one might think from news reports:
[t]he Taliban had a bad year in 2009, although they managed to play the media well enough to hide a lot of their problems. The biggest defeat for the Taliban was in a continued loss of support by the Afghan people. Opinion surveys have had the percentage of Afghan approving the Taliban going downward for several years, and it's now under ten percent. This is no surprise to anyone living in Afghanistan. The Taliban were always disliked by the majority of Afghans, but now their fellow Pushtuns overwhelmingly hate them as well. This has a lot to do with where the Taliban are operating. That is, mostly in the province of Kandahar, Helmand (where most of the heroin is produced) and Khost. About 80 percent of the violence is taking place in 13 percent of the country, and the Pushtuns in those areas are tired of the Taliban and all their self-righteous violence.
The activity you hear about in the north is usually in those few areas up there occupied by small Pushtun tribes. If the Taliban show up anywhere else (among Uzbek, Turk, Hazara or Tajik people, who dominate the north) they are easily identifiable, and subject to prompt scrutiny by lots of guys with guns. The Taliban not only have to be careful where they go in the north, but in the south as well. An increasing number of southern Pushtun tribes have organized militias to keep the Taliban out of their lands. Often, this is being done with the aid of Afghan or foreign troops. This is what the new American strategy is about, and what all the additional troops are for. Since the Taliban are already restricted to a small area, the new strategy constricts their movement even more.
There's more at the link.
President Obama doesn't like to think in terms of victory, perhaps, but victory is as possible in Afghanistan as it was in Iraq. It just takes a resolute, patient Commander in Chief willing to commit the necessary resources. If the stakes weren't so high it'd be very tempting to say that the fight in those far-off, desolate lands is not worth it, but we must constantly remind ourselves that the Islamists have determined that their struggle against us will be generational. It won't end next year or the year after or even, perhaps, in this century. The fight will go on as long as they're able to mount terrorist operations against the West. They are fanatics whose only purpose in life is to serve Allah by killing infidels. Their war against us will never end until they succeed or they're rendered unable to carry out their "mission."
The day we decide we no longer want to fight is the day we concede victory to those who will destroy us as soon as they possibly can.
RLC