We will stay as long as it takes to do our job? What is our job? to keep Afghanistan from being a home base to al-Qaida? To do that, all we have to do is begin negotiating with the Taliban to finally hand them over in exchange for money and an immediate pullout, then let the Taliban have Afghanistan while we go back to defending our country back home where it counts. I'll bet there's a hidden job of protecting the Trans-Afghanistan pipeline, keeping a military presence near the Caspian Sea oil, and supporting a possible invasion of Iran, but if so, when did the Congress officially approve it, and how long can we afford it? If we're going to invade Iran, we better do it by next year, or it will be too later to stop them from getting nukes. As to the Taliban, al-Qaida are illegal immigrants to them, they don't share their jihad with the U.S. and Israel, and we drove them in their arms with our invasion, so why not offer them $1 billion for each al-Qaida leader and $1 million for each grunt, it's cheaper than $1 million a year for each U.S. soldier kept there. The people of Afghanistan are just too backward and drenched in Muslim Sharia to sustain a stable pro-Western secular govt. without permanent military occupation, and we can't afford it until we win the real war, the one on terror. Study Islam's history and see why the Taliban can be split from al-Qaida at http://go.to/islamhistory

 Oh, we never had any doubts to the contrary.  That damn gas pipeline to the Caspian Sea must be finished at any cost.  And EXXON, et al will not leave until it is finished.  And that is final!