This will never end

Hey, will you look at that? The United States is finally headed towards pulling out of Iraq. They've removed 23,000 soldiers this year with the plan to get down to 50,000 non-combat troops in an advisory situation to the Iraqi government. You know, I never thought that we'd ever actually get to a point where....what's that you say? Afghanistan? .......Christ.

President Obama announced in March that he would be sending 21,000 additional troops to Afghanistan. But in an unannounced move, the White House has also authorized -- and the Pentagon is deploying -- at least 13,000 troops beyond that number, according to defense officials.
...
The deployment of the support troops to Afghanistan brings the total increase approved by Obama to 34,000. The buildup has raised the number of U.S. troops deployed to the war zones of Iraq and Afghanistan above the peak during the Iraq "surge" that President George W. Bush ordered, officials said.

/ bangs head off desk

Well, there goes that. Oh, and we haven't even gotten to the part about whether McChrystal gets an additional 40,000-70,000 combat troops like he wants. Sure the war is being called a "lost cause", the Taliban is resurgent in addition to al Qaeda, we have to deal with Afghan/Pakistan conflicts in addition to the war we're fighting, and all for a "government" that not only just rigged an election, but despite the international community funding, protecting, maintaining, and supporting the "government", it views a look into said election rigging as some form of heinous international interference.

But trust everyone: escalating a war in Afghanistan is always a good idea. Plus they're going to try a new strategy: counterinsurgency. See...oh fuck, they haven't been doing a counter-insurgent campaign all these years? So glad we're deciding to get to all of this now. This all sounds like such a great idea. Excuse me there's a desk I need to bang my forehead off of.