Why Are We "Surging" into Afghanistan?By Jim Hightower,

Excuse me for being impolitic, but why the -- is America "surging" so unquestioningly into Afghanistan?

Not for nothing is that country called "the burial ground of empires," "a guerilla's paradise" and "the theme park of problems." Yet, President Obama insists that America must act now to "stabilize" Afghanistan and its dizzyingly disparate, ethnically fractious, heavily armed tribal factions.
Actually, our military has already been trying to do this for more than seven years. Despite having 36,000 U.S. troops on the ground and spending $2 billion a month, the current situation there is described by our intelligence agencies as in a "downward spiral."

Instead of a whole new approach, however, the president's advisors are giving him the only answer ever offered by the war machine: more. They intend to double the number of soldiers in what now will become Obama's war. Why? As one advice-giver put it: What we need are more troops in Afghanistan because we need security, and eventually we will get a strategy."