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Is it enough to get Afghanistan back on its feet? Marine General James Jones, the military chief of NATO, told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in January that while the insurgents pose little military threat to allied forces, the U.S. and its allies do not have enough troops in Afghanistan to carry out reconstruction tasks, train a new Afghan army and hunt terrorists. The light footprint means fewer American troops have been put at risk, but it has left the U.S.'s Afghan allies even more exposed to danger. After U.S. patrols retreat to their firebases, Afghans say, the Taliban creep back into villages to murder collaborators, usually local policemen. "We are helpless," says Mansour Mehboob, a police chief in an outpost along the Kunar River in Afghanistan. "We have only the bullets in our [guns], nothing more. And the enemy is all around us."
That should be enough to keep U.S. forces in Afghanistan for years — if only because the enemy is the same one that attacked on Sept. 11. But the war in Iraq has strained the military's resources and soured portions of the U.S. public on the virtues of open-ended military interventions. In Afghanistan, many believe that the Taliban and their sympathizers are betting they need only wait until the U.S.'s patience runs out. The military leaders, if not the political ones, remain conscious of that possibility. "We don't have to win," says Howard, the commander of the Orgun-e firebase. "We just have to not lose." And the game is a long way from being over.
— With reporting by Michael Duffy and Mark Thompson/Washington