Taliban control half of Afghanistan

November 22, 2007
Taliban control half of Afghanistan

The Taliban has a permanent presence in most of Afghanistan and the country is in serious danger of falling into the group's hands, according to a report from an international think tank.

The report said: "It is a sad indictment of the current state of Afghanistan that the question now appears to be not if the Taliban will return to Kabul, but when this will happen and in what form.

Iraq is a lost cause

May 6, 2007
Iraq is a lost cause

Roanoke Times Editorial (Virgina): We have come to the painful conclusion that Iraq is a lost cause. Further expenditure of blood, lives and treasure will not lead to victory.

Though President Bush seems psychologically incapable of the act, it is time for everyone else in the United States to recognize the inevitable: The occupation of Iraq is an utter, irredeemable failure. We cannot win there militarily or politically.

Further expenditure of blood, lives and treasure will gain the United States nothing. Nor will it gain anything for the Iraqi people, who have seen only chaos and bloodshed from this intervention.

Kissinger: Iraq victory not possible

April 1, 2007
Kissinger: Iraq victory not possible

Former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, who helped engineer the US withdrawal from Vietnam, says the problems in Iraq are more complex than that conflict, and military victory is no longer possible.

He also said he sympathises with the troubles facing US President George Bush.

"A 'military victory' in the sense of total control over the whole territory, imposed on the entire population, is not possible," Kissinger told The Associated Press in Tokyo, where he received an honorary degree from Waseda University.

The faceless, ubiquitous nature of Iraq's insurgency, as well as the religious divide between Shi'ite and Sunni rivals, makes negotiating peace more complex, he said.

"It is a more complicated problem," Kissinger said. "The Vietnam War involved states, and you could negotiate with leaders who controlled a defined area."