Of course, there will be long and protacted plan for American occupation of Afghanistan. The reason for this is clear to Russia's leaders. It is about energy and competing pipelines but the Americans will fail and will leave in defeat sooner than later.

If the USA doesn't start to get out before the 2012 election, you can bet that Afghanistan has a lot of uranium, thorium, rare earths, oil, gas, lithium, gold, diamonds, or other very valuable undeveloped resources that the Pentagon believes, that the Iranians, Chinese, or someone else, can't be allowed to control alone, should America get out, and they move in. It wouldn't shock me, if a secret deal with Russia hasn't already been cut, to share whatever has been secretly found, probably by satellites in orbit using remote sensing. Why else would Russia let the US transit its' territory after America helped kill so many Russians during the First Afghan War, and possibly encouraged the dangerous Georgian attack? Threatening to put new missiles on each other's borders, isn't exactly indicative of friendly relations. But as we all know, big mineral money talks. Mining is the fastest way to great wealth. And China has already tried to buy huge chunks of the giant Australian miners, causing alarm among a large segment of the Australian electorate and military. And many geologists say that peak oil could be less than a decade away. Isn't some percentage of whatever is in Afghanistan, a lot better than fighting over it, and possibly end up starting WW III? No winners in that one. My theory sounds like a plot for the next James Bond movie, but stranger things have happened. We will probably know in a couple of years. Think about the fact that Mr.Gates just said that the US will remain in Iraq for 'many years.' So will the oil. Isn't Saddam still dead?

I wonder how America would feel if some nation decided there would be a long and protracted occupation of the United States. UAV's regularly bombing homes and the army assisting Methlab's across the country spread their Meth for extra cash. I think people would be Furious! However, anti-Islamic propaganda has worked wonders as many believe they are animals and out to destroy democracy. The leader of this mess received a Nobel Peace Prize. Very Interesting. Doesn't matter he didn't start it, some may say that. He expanded it and supports it.