Yankees Talking Sense

To this day, the vast majority of Afghans truly prefer U.S. forces over the Taliban. What they don't like, however, is our overwhelming failure to make progress after our initial gains in 2001 and 2002. If they hated us in general, the Afghans would've kicked out our meager force of 30,000 troops years ago. What they hate is when we tell them that we're going to run off the Taliban and fix their country--and then we don't. What they hate is when we offer them incentives to side with us against the Taliban, and then, when the Taliban return to their villages, we leave them hung out to dry. What they hate is when we are forced to rely on air power--resulting in unnecessary civilian casualties--because we don't have enough ground troops.

Here.