"harry" wrote in message
...


Afghanistan has not been conquered.
If the Russians couldn't do it, from next door what reason do you have
to suppose the USA could do it from the other side of the world?
It has been temporarily partially pacified.

The Taliban didn't seriously start to try to retake the country until 2005,
prior to that the occupying powers had an opportunity which they largely
failed to exploit--in America's case because its attention was focused on
Iraq. Of course the point is that something other than military force is
required to "conquer" a state like Afghanistan, and that's to give the
populace reason to believe they and their children will be better off
without the Taliban than with them. Given that the current govt. of
Afghanistan is hopelessly corrupt and incompetent it appears unlikely that a
happy and prosperous democracy is likely to spring up in that nation for the
foreseeable future.