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Situation in Afghanistan is not rosy. Representative government isn't exactly flourishing. Saying its the fault of Islam - that such will never work is too pessimistic, but very little attention is being put into nation-building in Afghanistan. In the best of circumstances, it takes a long time for people to adopt free ways and free-market ways. Afghanistan was not as good a candidate for representative government as Iraq was to begin with.

We did vanquish the Taliban; our boys are doing grimy but excellent work keeping down terroristic sparks. As for keeping up appearances for political reasons - that is just one way to express what we are doing. Keeping the country pacified. It would require much more attention from the administration to do anything more than keep up appearances, and they have bigger fish to fry.