[Richard]

Some facts bearing on the problem:

• The SecDef has stated we've put about all the 'boots on the ground' we can add for the time being.
  
• A key component of GEN McChrystal's strategy is an Afghanistan government which is not corruptively ineffective, partisan, fractured, and seen as a 'puppet' of the West - this does not now exist nor, after the recent elections fiasco, does it seem likely to occur in the near future.
  
• Our - and the global - economy is such that sustainment of indiscriminate OEF operations in a 'spreading democracy' fashion without careful strategic planning and focus is as great a danger in many ways as the hydra-like forces we seek to render impotent.
  
• Some of the 'key' components of the proposed plans now in existence are missing oe OBE and there is time to carefully rethink our course of action in OEF - although the time to do so is becoming less.

Conclusion(s):

As John Maynard Keynes said, "When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?"

IMO - a little more time taken now by those actually wearing the 'mantle of command' may prove the difference between either a more satisfying conclusion to these issues or yet another chapter of 'America and the Revolutionary Tar Baby."

YMMV.

Richard's $.02