Afghanistan is one of the poorest countries in the World and you can't rebuild it because it has never been "built" in the first place. The best way to deal with it would be to treat it like Pakistan's tribal areas are being combated - with special ops, CIA and drone missiles.

Let tribal leaders/warloards claim their territory and run them how ever they want to as long as they keep al qaeda/anti-West extremists out. If they buddy up with al Qaeda, it will be death from above from a drone attack - if they have their own land and have their own rules they have something to lose.

Remember America gave the Taliban the option to turn over bin Laden and his cohorts and they refused. What if they complied? America didn't care about Taliban rule in Afghanistan, and I don't think they'd care if a similar leadership took over again - as long as it kept extremists out.

Has anyone here ever heard Obama claim that he is seeking "victory" in Afghanistan? Just what would constitute such a "victory?"

Capturing or killing Bin Laden? Wiping out the Taliban? Just what would represent "victory?"

I don't think Obama considers it is even in the cards.

But meeting our original objective, which was to dis-empower and marginalize the Taliban and capture or kill any Al Queda operatives still planning mischief against us, is altogether different than fighting against anything akin to the Afghan govt.

It's not like Iraq, where deposing and hanging their leader represented some sort of twisted, 19th century Bush victory. In Afghanistan, the objective is certainly not regime change, it is ostensibly for the purpose of protecting us from terrorism. Afghanistan really IS the center of that war.

While Bush/Cheney claimed that is why we went to Iraq, we all know better. But it is a fact of life in Afghanistan, that we are not fighting a government and it's extended branches, no matter how well organized the Taliban may be. We are fighting "tribes" and "gangs" and "militias" with no real authority except their guns and knives.

So I would suggest that everyone stop looking for any word like "victory" to describe what we seek in Afghanistan, it does not fit the scenario. And no one in Obama's crew has even suggested it.

I can just see the concern trolls, turning the "victory" issue on it's head by demanding, as we progressives did about Iraq, some sort of definition of victory, as if it is the same thing.

Not from the side that matters.

Brownback's already getting pilloried in some circles (http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/connelly/401902_joel02.html) for his verbal attacks against fellow Catholics like Pelosi and Kerry and Kennedy, which all boils down to the abortion question.

As usual, the anti-abortion crowd is assuming a much larger silent majority behind them than really exists.

Sebelius' pragmatic stand on the abortion issue hasn't kept her from getting elected in the reddest area of the U.S., which should be good evidence that, as a prime issue, abortion is fading. It's detractors aren't any less vociferous, but their numbers are dwindling, as the reality of global population explosion, and the Earth's ability to feed and nurture all those ne3w humans becomes the bigger issue.

As one of those who hates abortion, but considers it an issue between a woman and her own conscience, I think I am in very close alignment with Sebelius, personally.

So while the intractable ideologues will doubtless try to make a big event out of her confirmation, and use it as a soap box for their political fundraising (which is, unfortunately. the real motivation of some of these supposed "pro-life" organizations), they are dealing with a woman who gets elected easily in one of our reddest states, where the anti-abortion forces are well organized and dominant, but still can't shake Sebelius' moderate following.