>Most of the world agrees that ridding Afghanistan of the Taliban was necessary. Doing Afghanistan right means completely emliminating the Taliban.

But then (remember Brezinsky's interview?), the Taliban were the invention of the USA/CIA, as a means of destabilizing the socialist government Afghanistan had in the eighties, and saddling the USSR with their own private Vietnam war. Which worked, except that the Taliban refused to vanish after accomplishing their mission.