Nato losing battle against the Taliban, says IISS

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The think tank said that the Taliban were stepping up the use of suicide bombings and expanding their operations into areas that were previously quiet.

At the same time, Nato members are struggling to agree among themselves what constituted "success" in Afghanistan while the global economic crisis meant that military budgets throughout the alliance were coming under pressure.

The warning, in the IISS\'s annual Military Balance survey of armed forces around the world, comes as new US President Barack Obama is expected to appeal to America\'s European allies to send more troops in an attempt to force a strategic breakthrough.

The report said that the Taliban insurgency had continued "unabated" throughout the past 12 months - even moving into previously quiet provinces - adding to pressures on the alliance.

Shouldn\'t the messiah have fixed this already?

In all seriousness, this is pretty dire.  I honestly can\'t believe the Taliban is still around.  This is part of the reason I think we should keep out of foreign entanglements.  This is a costly battle that we are losing.

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It made sense to go into afghanastan tho, since the guy responsible for 911 actually resides somewhere in that area...your buddy bush with his sideshow antics sidetracked everything when he foolishly invaded iraq. The taliban re-grouped while we were putting together the so-called surge in iraq.

i dont remember the part where kennedy became a bush supporter
anti-obama DOES NOT EQUAL pro-bush

I think it\'s odd that Al Qaida still does those videos where it\'s like 4 guys in dirty clothes and they didn\'t even clean up the room theyre in, there\'s guns on the walls and stuff.
 
Like if your situation is so bad that you might have to interupt Take Three on your latest YouTube video to shoot at American forces, maybe you should put your message board postings a little further down the priority list.
 
When the only way you can get the word out about your cause is to wink at GinnyUSA on MySpace, maybe you ought to find another weapon besides blowing yourself up. You need all the people you can get.
 
Really, though, its Vietnam-esque in that they\'re dug into the terrain and hard to find. It must be a grueling battle for our guys.

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i dont remember the part where kennedy became a bush supporter
anti-obama DOES NOT EQUAL pro-bush

Well kennedy himself stated....that he would criticize Obama in the same way that i criticized bush last election...that in itself suggests he was somewhat of a bush supporter. I\'m sure he\'ll say he wasn\'t a fan of bush as you can clearly see by his avy, but i\'m sure he was in favor of bush\'s policies over say hillary or obama\'s.

He chimes in with his sarcastic remarks about obama, but it\'s all in jest.

LOL, I did not and DO NOT support Bush.  Just because he\'s republican doesn\'t mean I like him.  I\'m a fan of conservatism, not idiocy.  IMO, the last great President we had was Reagan.  Obama talks business, Reagan meant business, and other countries did not fuck with him.

In the argument of the lesser of two evils, yes Bush is slightly less bad for America than Obama, but still both did and will do adequate damage to this country\'s economy and diplomatic relations.