“Nearly three years after U.S.-led forces launched the biggest operation of the war to clear insurgents, foster economic growth and set a model for the rest of Afghanistan, angry residents of Helmand province say they are too afraid to go out after dark because of marauding bands of thieves. And during the day, they say corrupt police and government officials bully them into paying bribes. After 11 years of war, many here long for a return of the Taliban. They say that under the Taliban, who routinely punished thieves by cutting off a hand, they were at least safe from crime and corruption.”

The surge— announced in 2009 — committed additional forces to the conflict at the request of military leaders on the ground.

"The decision did help us blunt the Taliban's momentum, and is allowing us to transition to Afghan lead - so we will have recovered that surge at the end of this month, and will end the war at the end of 2014. (...)" Obama wrote.

The U.S. troop surge in Afghanistan ended last week. Conditions in Afghanistan are mostly worse than before it began.

That conclusion doesn’t come from anti-war advocates. It relies on data recently released by the NATO command in Afghanistan, known as ISAF, and acquired by Danger Room. According to most of the yardsticks chosen by the military — but not all — the surge in Afghanistan fell short of its stated goal: stopping the Taliban’s momentum.

Of course, that’s not ISAF’s spin. The command notes that enemy attacks from January to August 2012 are slightly lower, by 5 percent, from that period last year; and that the past two Augusts show a reduction in attacks of 30 percent. But the more relevant comparison is to 2009, when Afghanistan looked like such a mess that President Obama substantially increased troop levels. And compared to 2009, Afghanistan does not look improved.

In many areas of Afghanistan it is the warlords who hold sway - not the central government or the Taliban. They are able to exploit villagers with impunity using the threat, or the reality, of violence. (...)

Both the Soviets and the Taliban struggled to gain control of this part of Afghanistan and its "mujahideen warlords", who today rule unchallenged.

In some places they impose taxes on local traders. Some have become government officials. Some run anti-Taliban militia groups, called Arbaki, which are supported by the government and international forces.

And many ordinary Afghan people are terrified of them. They say the commanders extort money and food, grab land, assault people - and sometimes kill.

Takhar province is situated on the southern banks of the Amudarya - the biggest river in Central Asia. Its tributaries should be able to provide enough water for all the region's agriculture - but, oddly, many farmers struggle to irrigate their crops.

In one district, Khojaye Ghor, the irrigation canals have dried up completely and crops are failing - hundreds of families have had to abandon their homes in search of water.

The explanation lies upstream.

"Some powerful and armed people... diverted our river to power their hydro-electric generators," one local farmer, Muhammad Sharif, complains.

One of them is Mr Aghagul Qataghany, he says - a former mujahideen commander, now mayor of Taloqan, the capital of Takhar province.

When I meet him in his office, he denies the allegation.

"Show me that person and I'm ready to challenge him in court. I don't have any hydro-power generator," he tells me.

But others back up the farmer's story.

Najibulla Khaliqyar, the head of the Provincial Council of Takhar, agrees Qataghany and others are diverting rivers for power. (...)

Did the "surge" work in Afghanistan? The Obama administration would like you to think that it did, mostly so that it can declare victory and get out. I'm all in favor of the latter option, but let's not deceive ourselves about the wisdom of the Afghan surge itself. (...)

WASHINGTON, Nov 15 2012 (IPS) - Paula Broadwell, whose affair with Gen. David Petraeus brought his career to a sudden end last week, had sought to help defend his decision in 2010 to allow village destruction in Afghanistan that not only violated his own previous guidance but the international laws of war.

Gen. David Petraeus (right) was under pressure from the Obama administration to produce tangible evidence of “progress” that could be used to justify troop withdrawals. Credit: U.S. Dod/public domain

But her efforts had the opposite effect.

The new Petraeus policy guidance allowed the destruction of villages in three districts of Kandahar province if the population did not tell U.S. forces where homemade bombs were hidden. (...)

(...) We are probably headed for stalemate in 2014,” says Stephen Biddle, a George Washington University professor who has advised US commanders in Afghanistan and Iraq. Biddle warns that the US will probably be pumping billions of dollars a year into Afghanistan for decades to come in an attempt to prevent collapse and civil war.

US and Afghan negotiators in Kabul have been meeting to hammer out a formal security agreement that will govern the presence of US troops past 2014, perhaps until 2024.

The complete and utter failure of the US and its NATO allies to get anything constructive done in Afghanistan for the past 11 years should be testament enough that another 11 years won’t do any good either.

The stated mission of the US in the war in Afghanistan has been to eliminate the Taliban and al-Qaeda and prevent their return by building up a stable Afghan government and independent security forces. Every one of these goals have been objective failures, and experts and commentators across the political spectrum acknowledge this.

The fact that the insurgency in Afghanistan is as strong as ever, even after 11 years of facing off against the world’s most advanced military, is an indication that it will remain alive and well so long as there are any occupation forces on the ground and so long as the Kabul government is propped up by hostile foreign governments. Staying in Afghanistan beyond 2014 – indeed, beyond tomorrow – makes no strategic, or moral sense.