Remember how we used to hear so much about how great everything was and how we saved the country from the Taliban? Who could forget about how valiant the Americans were to help those poor women who were forced to cover themselves from head to toe? And what about all of those earlier claims about the heroin trade under the Taliban? Looking at how poorly things are over there now it's no wonder they're not promoting it as a success much anymore. I guess Laura won't be making any more one hour stopovers there any time soon.
The new Taliban are deploying tactics that have torn Iraq to shreds, and Afghanistan is seeing a surge in the previously unknown practice of suicide bombings  25 in four months. This is seen as the reintroduction of al-Qa'ida into Afghanistan  a devastating example of how over-extending the "war on terror" into Iraq is rebounding on the West with vengeance.
President George Bush, supported by Mr Blair, the critics say, has subsequently neglected Afghanistan, toppled Saddam, and spawned " al-Qa'ida in Iraq" led by the Jordanian-born militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. This is the reality on the ground awaiting thousands of British troops being sent in the next few months into Afghanistan  a redeployment which in itself is part of the disengagement plan for Iraq.
Despite elections last year, presented as concrete steps towards stability, President Karzai's Afghan forces, trained by Nato, are no match for al-Qa'ida and its supporting phalanx of former Taliban. The real fight will have to be continued by Western troops. Heroin cultivation has rocketed in the atmosphere of lawlessness, with 90 per cent of the supplies in Europe now coming from the country.
