Sir;... I was among the many who tried to warn this country away from Afghanistan....So what; since I cannot claim foresight???People should learn from the mistakes of others, and with so many lessons who needs their own???Surely I have read about the place, some; but more about Islam.... But, for all practical purposes, I am uneducated.... I might as well have learned to fly as learned to read.... Each has gotten me about as far.... So what were the mistake we made???Going there was a mistake... No one should fight while an alternative exists... When ever possible, people should choose the battlefield to have the battle field of choice...For them, it is the perfect battlefield...For us it is a death trap...Staying was a mistake... The Great Fred said: Hold everywhere, and hold no where... We could have wrecked them and left.... Putting a  puppet in power was a mistake... That was a continuation of the last problem of not leaving... No one we set up will have legitimacy... Either forget it, or don't bother with legitimacy... Empower some one you like, but give them government and they are done...Let them take power by taking the countryside, and then deal with them, if they can survive... Otherwise, win or lose they serve your purpose...If we did nothing more than remove our enemies from power, we would have done all we needed to....We should have left; because invasions are what we are about...Staying is expensive and pointless... We want them to form up...We want to see if we can reach some agreement with them, and if we cannot we want them all together...Rub them out, and get out, and let them form up again, and see if you can reach an agreement with them....What we have done will inevitably result in failure, and will break us financially in the process, and unnecesssarily burn our fingers, and make it more difficult to go anywhere in the future... Our plan, if we thought it necessary to go, should always have been to leave... Now our leaving will seem a victory to them followed by a slaughter of all who have helped us...Ignorant leadership from the generals to the president has ruined our cause...Democracy is the cure for both...And democracy is defensive, and would have put a premium on defense at home...Democracy, if we had it, would have prevented this nonsense in that anus of the earth... Look at the place... Until some one learns to defeat geography that is no place to fight, and is a great place to lose...All we have done is make a bunch of corrupt puppets rich...That is our sole success...They will beat us out of the country..They will be living in France, and we will be living in the poor house.. ..Thanks...Sweeney