What next in Afghanistan?

Writing about Afghanistan in the January 5 edition of the New York Times, Bob Herbert quotes two Times writers.

Michael Gordon:

“Afghanistan presents a unique set of problems: a rural-based insurgency, an enemy sanctuary in neighboring Pakistan, the chronic weakness of the Afghan government, a thriving narcotics trade, poorly developed infrastructure, and forbidding terrain.”

Dexter Filkins:

“Kept afloat by billions of dollars in American and other foreign aid, the government of Afghanistan is shot through with corruption and graft. From the lowliest traffic policeman to the family of President Hamid Karzai himself, the state built on the ruins of the Taliban government seven years ago now often seems to exist for little more than the enrichment of those who run it.”

In the last seven years, 631 US troops and 416 troops from other countries have already been killed in Afghanistan. Let us hope that President Obama will move very, very slowly on his announced plans to send thousands more troops into what Herbert calls The Afghan Quagmire.