Ralphmalph,
Wrt the elephant in the room; it's a good point, and one with a subtle answer, IMHO. Here are my thoughts on it, designed to prompt thought and provide another angle, not to patronise or denigrate in any way, just to set the tone of my post.
The problem lies in interpreting the situation correctly, which we have failed to do entirely.
We (NATO/allies) think that we are in a fight with men. Men who wear flip flops, and identify themselves as a Taliban fighter. They fight asymmetrically, but despite their numbers, this fact is what makes it difficult to defeat them militarily, because they normally exploit surprise on us, making us reactive, and can blend in with the natives. Couple that with tactics like ieds where they are hard to find and fix, and there you have it. A tough campaign, where we can keep going until the politicians pull us out, job done, or not, basically we'll call it a day in 2014. Then will come the reflection, from the comfort of watching the nation unfold. At the moment though, it's easy to convince ourselves we're doing all we can, in the best manner, in a very difficult situation.
The Russians went through this, and the lessons they learnt the hard way, we will learn. Too late, granted, but the similarities exist.
I would propose that one of the lessons the Russians identified from making the same mistake that we now make, is that the 'Taliban' is not an organised bunch of troops, but is merely an idea. This ideal provides an avenue of activity which appeals to the motivational values of young men in that culture, one of achieving an identity, in a way that they would say is honourable.
So the real mistake is not to acknowledge this fact, and make efforts to offer an alternative to this ideal. We offer little in the way of alternative. It isn't easy to do so either. But I think that so many people who don't see it as necessary to do so are often those who wonder why the military might of the Western world has trouble stuffing a few hundred flip-flop wearers.
In trying to generate an Army there, we have a problem of identity. Here you go Afghans, have a democracy and an Army. Identity and honour sorted, yes? Well, no, actually. There are many in Afghanistan (as we call it) who have no regard for the borders that were drawn up, which often lie across tribal areas. Some individuals do not see themselves as 'Afghani' or from 'Afghanistan'. Again, we miss this point a lot of the time. So unfortunately, we now reap the problems of history and this will be very difficult to unpick. Ergo, train flip-flop wearers to become boot and beret wearers, take minimum risk for the final 2 years to drop the casualty numbers so the press lose interest, and we can say we now have the security situation totally under our control (no-one at home will know otherwise). Then declare victory in 2014 and hot foot it out of there. Hence the hitler YouTube spoofs of the 45 slide conop just to go outside the wire...
Sorry for the long post, hope it provides an alternative angle. It's all just my opinion personally of course, and I don't expect or need agreement, I just hope that after all of this, our gov't can engage brain before engaging in battle.