Just a bit of clarification:

1) Poppy IS profitable for the Taleban/warlords all the way, i.e., after converting them into illegal drugs, money is used to finance Taleban/Al Qaeda terrorist wars. But it is acknowledged that it is NOT profitable to your ordinary Afghan farming family.

2) Intervention in Iraq: military point of view, there was an invasion plan, one that involved attacking and dismantling Iraq, punitive actions on the people of Iraq, causing havoc on the nerve centers of the Iraqi institutions, etc. but nothing by way of post invasion or post warring and that's the reason the unholy alliance led by Bush and Blair failed and still failing miserably today. Frankly, when all is said and done, Genghis Khan would have done a better job of planning.

3) Re "involving Afghan warlords": From the outset, I think there was no question that warlords were not going to be involved. They were going to be involved! We must face it -- Afghanistan, is mostly about Taleban and warlords; that's Afghan culture -- the UN had to and must deal with warlords to make headway, get them on side, away from violent extremist Taleban-Al Qaeda factions. Did you know that Northern Alliance, the alliance that the West initially backed against Russian occupation was an alliance of warlords? What the UN basically is trying to do today is to dismantle the Taleban-warlord apparatus in Afghanistan Difficult, long journey for all.

3) Re: "then suddenly the yanks got cold feet about actually sending troops in who might, horror of horrors, actually get shot and die;"

If you actually look closely, the Yanks didn't get "cold feet", they just got so distracted when they decided to commit the bulk of their troops to another war, i.e., Iraq. That was of course the decision of US commander in chief Bush.

4) Re: "... so the warlords were back in the game. Course we bombed the shit out of he country, ruining thousandos of years old irrigation system, wrecking the agriculture across swathes of the country."

Realistically, not UN-ISAF that ruinined thousands of years old irrigation system, etc. but that started to happen way back during the Russian occupation of Afghanistan. 5) Re: "But we blunder in, Great Game Colonials all and stick our big dicks in someone else's pool and well, ooh look, it's got piss in it."

True, we were in 3 wars that involved Britain and Afghanistan but the Great Game Colonials that you speak of was about the balance of power in the Caucuses region that pitted British v Russian empires.

6) Today there are 37 nations involved in the UN-mandated ISAF operations all over the world. (NATO has 26 member nations only). It's not about building or shoring up empires this time of the 18th/19th century types but about saving a failed state. We may not like the way the US, one of the major member os NATO, approached military operations in Afghanistan through their Enduring Freedom Operations (not under NATO-ISAF operations) but on the whole, ISAF troops involved in the country are doing what they've been mandated to do, security operations and in aid of nation building.

Bluntly put, UN backed ISAF operations in Afghanistan, from military and political viewpoints, are not similar to those being carried on by US in Iraq. The US-UK invasion of and war on Iraq was based on lies, manufactured evidence, fabricated intel, etc., To me, there was no rhyme or reason to the invasion of and war on Iraq and on the Iraqis.

Realistically, if we leave Afghanistan because we believe that it is fundamentally a "failed state", there is no guarantee that we will not find ourselves with the kind of Darfour debacle in our hands once again. Pakistan had borne the brunt of the Russian wars there that produced more Talebans, more extremists, more violence, etc. In the long run, the only way out of that kind of total and utter fiasco is to try to bring progress to the ordinary people of Afghanistan, education, health services, infrastructure, etc.

Of course, there is a way out of Afghanistan (and leave the Afghans to their fate)..., if people truly think that their respective nations should not be involved in ISAF in Afghanistan, I guess one thing that may be done is to petition their respective governments to withdraw their support for the UN backing there. But is that the judicious thing to do?