In Afghanistan, doubts grow and weariness deepens

In Afghanistan, doubts grow and weariness deepens
By Laura King, Los Angeles Times
June 24, 2010

Reporting from Kabul, Afghanistan — Long before he'd ever heard of Rolling Stone magazine, Abdul Baqi harbored deep doubts about the U.S.-led war effort in Afghanistan.

"The Americans are here for their own reasons, for their own benefit," the cleanshaven 23-year-old university student said, shaking his head. "If they really wanted to bring peace to Afghanistan, they could have done so already, whoever was in charge."

For many Afghans, U.S. Army Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal's dismissal over intemperate remarks in a magazine profile has served mainly to underscore their own weariness with a conflict that has dragged on for nearly nine years with no end in sight.

McChrystal, the West's top military commander in Afghanistan, was summoned to the White House on Wednesday to give an accounting of withering comments by him and senior aides about key members of President Obama's national security team. It was after 10 p.m. in Kabul when Obama announced that he had accepted the general's resignation.

For some, the general's woes have sharpened fears that the Western campaign against the Taliban movement — which ruled the country for five long, harsh years — is floundering. And many Afghans think that the Americans, like the Soviet Union two decades ago and so many would-be conquerors, ultimately will fail.