This glib sentiment ignores the reality that there are in fact thousands of armed militants in Afghanistan who will happily kill tens of innocent Afghanis on spec just for the prospect of killing a single NATO soldier, and that the vast majority of those militants have not been captured.

One needn't support GTMO, or even tolerate it, to acknowledge the fact that our adversaries in this conflict are both real and despicable.

They're not despicable. Just piteous, and angry, and at the guys who really screwed shit up for them - that's the US right now - used to be the USSR. The militants were borne out of these historic conflicts, and were largely armed by such. They will not go away through force. They cannot. It is ridiculous to think that one can resolve something through yet more of the very thing which instigated it. They can and will go away if their root cause, Imperialism, is no longer an issue. Currently, they seek to do this by force, and they're winning; the US I see today compared to that I knew and loved and lived in some 15 years ago bears precious little semblance. This could be resolved diplomatically, but only through tripartite talks between the Afghani government, the Taliban and the US.

Can a man who's warm understand one who's freezing?

Neither Russia nor the US forced militants to establish a despotic theocracy in Afghanistan dedicated to the facially ridiculous prospect of establishing an Islamic Caliphate that would run the middle east under medieval religious law, or to host a transnational irregular armed force dedicated to the delusional prospect of hastening that lost cause by targeting and murdering civilians abroad.

If you want to pursue a line of argument that leaves you sticking up for the Taliban, that's your prerogative, but I don't think doing so will strengthen any case you have to make about the US.

If you haven't seen http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Power_of_Nightmares, it's well worth a view.

The fact that the Taliban was a despicable force for evil doesn't moot the idea that politicians and demagogues in the US and Europe have exploited Islamaphobia, nor does it imply that the Taliban or Al Qaeda is a threat worthy of the degree of state machinery we've allocated to it.

None of these things are black and white.

Of course. One of the interesting aspects was the extent to which the west instigated and funded these organizations almost from inception.