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Getting further bogged down......

A record, of sorts, was set today. 1000 US troops have been killed in Afghanistan. And the question which needs to be asked. Has it been a "price" worth incurring? and for what end? - given the period the war has now dragged on and with no real end in sight.

Yahoo! News puts the grim figures into context:

"The number of American soldiers killed in Afghanistan has reached 1,000, an independent website said on Tuesday, a grim reminder that eight years of fighting has failed to defeat Taliban insurgents.

Icasualties.org said 54 U.S. troops were killed this year in Afghanistan, raising the casualties to 1,000, compared to eight in Iraq, where the total has reached 4,378. The rise to 1,000 dead coincides with one of the biggest offensives against the Taliban, a NATO-led assault in the Marjah district of Helmand, Afghanistan's most violent province.

The operation is an early test of U.S. President Barack Obama's troop surge strategy aimed as wresting control of Taliban bastions and handing them over to Afghan authorities before the start of a gradual U.S. troop withdrawal in 2011.

Afghanistan is high on Obama's foreign policy agenda and more American casualties or a military campaign that fails to bring stability to the country could harm his presidency.
Violence is at its highest level since the 2001 ouster of the Taliban. Last year was the deadliest of the war for civilians and foreign troops."

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