What is the current situation in Afghanistan?

America has recently "doubled down" in that country,
sending an additional surge of 35,000 troops.  Afghanistan, to be clear, is not really a
country at all, but an artificial border around a series of tribes, many of which speak
different languages and do not get along well.

The
government of Hamid Karzai, a former warlord, is corrupt and tainted, some say
hopelessly so, and it appears they just cheated in the last
election.

Economically, the country is very poor.  The per
capita income is in the range of $200 per year per worker.  The entire country has but
one interstate highway. In conditions like these, it is pretty easy for the Taliban, the
group that is fighting us for control, to find
recruits.

Osama bin Laden and some of his al-Qaeda forces
reportedly move back and forth across the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan, in
the high rugged mountains where our forces cannot easily
go.

Right now the US military, led by Marines, are invading
strongholds in the southern part of the country, where the Taliban started and where it
is most popular.  The Marines, part of the surge, are currently preparing to take the
largest city in the region and the largest one still under Taliban control, Kandahar,
with nearly 500,000 people.

It is a guerrilla war, which
makes it difficult to win. Our enemy often runs away when we come close and returns as
soon as we've left.  They are using heroin sales to finance the war, so another of our
objectives is to destroy this source of income for them.