Taliban 'emboldened' by coming NATO exit.....

The Afghans can feel that the west is going to abandon them...and this heartens the Taliban. How on earth can we let Afghanistan go back to the Taliban????

It will likely be a few years before Afghanistan is secure enough for US Marines to leave, Commandant Gen. James Conway said Tuesday, adding his voice to a growing chorus of military leaders warning of a long fight ahead.

Afghan war commander Gen. David Petraeus and other senior officers have recently said that progress is being made slowly and that considerable time will be needed before Afghan troops can take over the fight.

But Conway's blunt assessment was the first of its kind to come from a service chief since US President Barack Obama announced that US troops will begin leaving Afghanistan in July 2011. Last fall, Obama said that security conditions will determine how many forces can leave and how fast.

"Though I certainly believe some American unit somewhere in Afghanistan will turn over responsibilities to Afghan security forces in 2011, I do not think they will be Marines," he told reporters in his opening remarks at a Pentagon press conference.

Noting that Helmand and Kandahar are considered the "birthplace" of the Taliban, Conway said "I honestly think it will be a few years before conditions on the ground are such that turnover will be possible for us."

Conway said he wanted to prepare Marines for the likelihood that the war will continue past the 2011 deadline. He recently returned from a trip to Afghanistan, where he said morale was high because Marines "can sense conditions are turning their direction."

Conway said there was some intelligence indicating that Taliban fighters were emboldened by the prospect of a US exit next year.

In the west, we now have an unholy alliance of the 'get the troops out' left and the isolationist right. I can't tell you how many so-called conservatives have told me that we just can't win this war...so we might as well leave. The loony left narrative has infected the right.

What's worse is that some of the very same voices who are adamant about opposing 'Islam' are also wanting to see us leave the very place we can fight Radical Islam.