Losing Afghanistan

National Intelligence Director Michael McConnell:

"More than six years after the U.S. invaded to establish a stable central regime in Afghanistan, the Kabul government under President Hamid Karzai controls just 30 percent of the country, the top U.S. intelligence official said Wednesday."

This must be tempered by the fact that there is a great deal of territory in the country that has never been effectively controlled by any non-local authority. Never. Not by the Persians, not by Alexander, not by the British, not by the Russians, not even by the Taliban.