I think Wes Clark understands the situation on the ground, judging from the latter portion of the clip. Afghanistan is a collection of peoples gathered by the British under one artificial border. Yet his solutions, jobs, hope, nation-building and border protection, sound like strategy in a game of Risk, not a real solution for the people of Afghanistan.

What is happening in Afghanistan is not a revival of the Taliban, though that is occurring, too. This is Round Three in a civil war between the northern and southern groups. (We call them the Northern Alliance and the Taliban for short.) They have fought two other civil wars, at either end of the Soviet occupation.

So what we're doing is picking sides - the northern side - in Round Three. The crazy thing is that the Taliban is receiving most of its support from Pakistan and the Saudis. You know, our allies. Using money we sent them - to Pakistan to strengthen Musharraf and to the Saudis for oil. So we're funding both sides in this civil war and fighting on one side. That's not just stupid, it's sick-making.

If we’re going to put more troops in Afghanistan, I want them to complete one task: capture or kill Osama bin Laden, Ayman al-Zawahiri and the rest of the Arabs holing up on the Afghanistan-Pakistan border, and anyone who stands and fights us along the way. Then we come home and leave Afghanistan to the people who live there. They can fight, they can find peace, they can form new alliances, or build new nations if they wish. It's their land, not ours.