From The Horse's Mouth: Afghanistan Going Down ...

Read it and weep (emphasis added):

Afghanistan has seen 'spiral downwards': top US general

Parts of Afghanistan have seen a "spiral downwards" of violence, the incoming US regional commander (Gen. Petraeus) said Monday, adding the fight against Taliban forces would continue unabated through the winter.

General David Petraeus told reporters outside Downing Street after talks with British Prime Minister Gordon Brown that there had been "significant progress" in some areas of the country.

But he added: "There's no question but that the trends in terms of violence and so forth have been in the wrong direction.

"So in that case, you're either spiralling downward or upward and in certain areas in Afghanistan clearly there has been a spiral downward that all involved... want to arrest and then get going back up again".

Petraeus, who was in charge of US-led forces in Iraq until earlier this year, takes charge of US forces in southwest Asia and the Middle East next month.

He also said he expected to see NATO troops fighting in Afghanistan "through the winter, perhaps a bit more than we have seen in the past."

Petraeus added: "I think we are going to endeavour to continue a higher level of operational tempo throughout so that there's not a lull in the fighting season that we continue...to take the fight to the enemy."

Got that, McCain - you who keep on fawning about that whatever Petraeus says, is God's Law?

Got that, Harper?

Let me repeat this slowly this time around, so all you incompetents out there whom have kept on denying the grim reality of this ludicrous Afghan war: we must leave Afghanistan ... now.

Not in 2009. Not in 2011. Not in 100 years.

Now.

Besides - bin Laden, al Qaeda and the Taliban have been hiding in Pakistan since 2002 ...

Enough wasting thousands of lives and billions of dollars yearly.


(Cross-posted at The Wild Wild Left, NetRoots)