Doomed Afghan strategy

I watched last week’s 60 Minutes, a popular news show in USA. It covered a group of U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan tasked with finding and destroying bombs buried in the roads by Taliban. The reaction and comments of the U.S. soldiers reminded me of software engineers who work on projects they know are doomed. They will be working hard knowing the truth, but keeping quiet while the management spouts small accomplishments as the harbinger of ultimate success. The resigned looks and wry smiles of U.S. soldiers are familiar to me, as I have been in a few disaster software projects in my lifetime. I have no doubt that U.S. is going to get her a** kicked in Afghanistan with or without more troops. The proposal of ‘winning’ the Afghanis over to support U.S. army is simply ridiculous. How can the local people ever like the heavily armed U.S. soldiers who move like robots, carrying over 60 pounds of armaments and other equipments? People of any nation hate foreign occupation, however well intentioned it may be. They will do anything to get rid of it. I am surprised that this rudimentary law of human nature is ignored in the U.S. strategy in Afghanistan. I think President Obama knows the hopelessness of the situation. But he is stuck between a rock and a hard place, as any proposal of U.S. withdrawal will be politically damaging -- it will give the Republicans a golden opportunity to reinforce the perception of Democrats being soft on national security. So, I expect the President to come up with some ‘stop gap’ measure which will only delay the inevitable. Another train wreck in slow motion!