BUSH/CHENEY IRAQ WAR ALLOWED RISE OF TALIBAN INSURGENCY

"The Afghanistan War is now responsible for the deaths of 1,000 US troops. It has now also gone on longer than the Revolutionary War. You have to wonder how many of those troops would be alive if the Bush-Cheney administration had not taken its eye off the ball and deprived them of resources, sending the resources instead to Iraq. Efforts to develop and build governmental capacity in 2002 and 2003 might have averted the rise of a neo-Taliban insurgency. Once an insurgency gets going, it is almost impossible to stop it militarily (only 20 percent of insurgencies are defeated on the battleground)..."
http://www.juancole.com/2010/02/bombing-in-lashkar-gah-kills-7-karzai.html