I don't see how any analysis of the situation in Afghanistan legitimately refutes any argument to pull our troops out. The one unanswerable trump card seems to be, "it is our responsibility", which though holding some weight, doesn't really have much rationality, because many people are dying in the misnomer of "freedom", when it's anything but that. No real "progress" is being made. This is a war dictated from the top; it is not in the interests of those at the bottom.

It's absolutely fucking atrocious.

This is a good perspective.

The regime in Kabul is not “seen by the Afghan people as working in their interests” not merely because of its pervasive corruption, brutality and incompetence. It is a regime that has been imposed upon them by foreign occupation. It was created to serve not the interests of the Afghans, but those of US imperialism, which is pursuing the strategic goal of asserting its hegemony over Central Asia and the region’s vast energy resources.

It is in pursuit of these same interests that the Obama administration is preparing to escalate the killing in Afghanistan.