When your so called allies flee in the face of insurgents the war is already lost...

via Military.com

Around 100 Afghan soldiers fled their posts and tried to cross into neighboring Turkmenistan during a weeklong battle with the Taliban, officials said Sunday, in the latest setback for the country's battered security forces.


Mohammad Naser Nazari, a provincial council member in the western Badghis province, said the soldiers weren't allowed to cross the border and their fate remains unknown. The Taliban have posted pictures of captured soldiers on social media.


Jamshid Shahabi, the provincial governor's spokesman, said 16 soldiers have been killed and 20 wounded during the ongoing battle in the Bala Murghab district, in which the military carried out airstrikes and dispatched reinforcements. He said a number of soldiers tried to flee, without providing an exact figure.


Shahabi said more than 40 insurgents were killed in the fighting. He said the provincial police chief and army commander are in the district and instructing the forces to root out insurgents and rescue soldiers. Officials said the fighting had largely subsided by Sunday, with sporadic clashes breaking out in remote areas.

Story here. 

The first paragraph tells me all I need to know.  Captured Afghan soldiers are a tragedy as are the wounded.

I don't place any belief in the number of insurgents killed.  It doesn't matter if its true or not.

The bad guys are winning.

But even if we surged US forces to win back ground the issue is all but settled.

The Taliban have essentially won this war.  I wish that wasn't the case but it is.  Bush was stupid and we all bought into his meme of "stay the course" and invading Iraq for nuclear weapons that weren't there.  Then we idiotically "listened to the generals" and found ourselves in a war that has lasted almost 20 years and if we continue to listen will probably last another 20.

With the same end result.

The Northern Alliance was and is weak.  Our way of war proved insufficient because we sought continued operations instead of victory.

Our arrogance mirrored the arrogance of others that came before with the same result. 

Afghanistan truly is the graveyard of empires.