After yesterday's Washington Post story about a memo from the American General in charge in Afghanistan, essentially telling the President he needs more troops or the mission will fail, there was a great deal of reaction.

Ralph Peters says we need to abandon the 'nation building' mission, as there is no nation to build in Afghanistan. He advocates maintaining a small, lethal force of special operators to go after Al Qaeda targets if they try to set up shop again in Afghanistan, and any of their allies in the country.

H.D.S. Greenway talks of history, and how more men will probably not do any good.

I supported the mission back in 2001, but it now appears that nation building will not work, at least not combined with war fighting operations. Perhaps a retreat from Afghanistan's internal political affairs, along the lines that Peters proposes, would be the best bet.