Taliban Overrun Kabul in 5...4...3...2

It does not look good. We've listened for months and months how NATO member after NATO member has made pussy lame excuses for not bolstering their troop levels in Afghanistan to hold the line against the Taliban. Canada has hemmed and hawed. The French have taken a pass until recently when the new guy in charge has shown some balls. The Germans? Oh, I think the Germans agreed to send some equipment. What will it take for these "allies" of the U.S. and Britain to wake the hell up?

Does everyone understand what the fall of Kabul means? You know....France and Germany and other NATO members all passed on the old infamous offer from bin laden for amnesty. They all talked tough. And now they all sit on their hands. Why didn't they all just take the offer instead of faking this support of the cause.

Here's the really bad news:

LONDON (Reuters) - The conflict in Afghanistan has reached "crisis proportions," with the resurgent Taliban present in more than half the country and closing in on Kabul, a report said on Wednesday.

If NATO, the lead force operating in Afghanistan, is to have any impact against the insurgency, troop numbers will have to be doubled to at least 80,000, the report said.
"The Taliban has shown itself to be a truly resurgent force," the Senlis Council, an independent think-tank with a permanent presence in Afghanistan, wrote in a study entitled "Stumbling into Chaos: Afghanistan on the brink."
"Its ability to establish a presence throughout the country is now proven beyond doubt," it said. "The insurgency now controls vast swaths of unchallenged territory including rural areas, some district centers, and important road arteries."
Senlis said its research had established that the Taliban, driven out of Afghanistan by the U.S. invasion in late 2001, had rebuilt a permanent presence in 54 percent of the country and was finding it easy to recruit new followers

Senlis said that without the troop "surge," and renewed efforts to win over the Afghan population and make reconstruction take hold, the country was in danger of falling back into the hands of the Taliban.

By the way, here's who is putting their troops where their mouths are among NATO members:

United States of America 15,000 troops
Great Britain 7,500 troops
Germany 3,000 troops
Canada 2,500 troops
Netherlands 2,000 troops
Italy 1,500 troops

**********UPDATE************************UPDATE*****************************

Even more bad news:

"Could the Europeans squeeze out a few more warm bodies and some more
assets? The answer is 'yes', but not in huge numbers. And there the big obstacle
is that in many countries: in Germany, in Italy, in the Netherlands, in Canada,
there is a lot of domestic skepticism growing about the mission in Afghanistan.
And I think governments are fearful of rocking the boat by saying not only are
we going to continue this mission, but we are going to send more troops," said
Kupchan. Sean Kay, a NATO expert at Ohio Wesleyan University agrees that support
for the war in Afghanistan is waning."Public opinion in both Canada and the
Netherlands, and in fact throughout the NATO countries, has turned sour on the
war in Afghanistan," he said. "Even in the United States, there was a poll out
this summer that showed that 42 percent of the American public wanted to get out
of Afghanistan as soon as possible. So public support for this engagement,
especially the combat side of it, is dropping."Kay says the Bush administration
must do a much better job to explain NATO's role in Afghanistan."At the end of
the day, we lead NATO," he said. "And so that requires the administration to
come forward and really explain to the country what's going on in Afghanistan
and why we really need to either redouble our efforts or reassess the mission to
something that is possible."Kay and others say NATO's Afghan mission is crucial
to the future of the alliance as it continues to redefine its role following the
end of the Cold War.