Afghans also think that U.S. and NATO forces who are battling the Taliban across the country are incapable of stemming the Taliban tide. So far this year at least 4000 people have been killed in Taliban attacks, including some 217 people killed in 97 suicide bombing attacks.

At its summit in Riga on Tuesday, NATO has to decide whether it's going to take Afghanistan seriously and induct desperately needed additional troops, aircraft and development aid from member states who have so far proved reluctant to provide them or face the humiliation of loosing greater parts of rural Afghanistan to the Taliban. The U.S. bogged down in extracting itself from Iraq is unlikely to be able to provide additional troops or war materials for the fight in Afghanistan.

Pashtun tribal leaders in Peshawar say the Taliban are preparing a major offensive in February for which thousands of men and armaments are being mobilized in both Pakistan and Afghanistan. Meanwhile President Hamid Karzai has so far failed to decisively stem the tide of corruption, drugs trafficking and warlordism that continues to beset those areas of Afghanistan where the Taliban are not active.

After facing a spate of accusations that Pakistan is harboring the Taliban leadership and is unwilling to shut down the Taliban bases on its soil, Pakistani officials have gone on the offensive telling NATO members states that they are certain to lose and that NATO should just give up and talk to the Taliban.

Pakistani officials are now expressing open criticism of U.S. and NATO policy in Afghanistan as well as strident criticism of Karzai. The U.S. -- unwilling to annoy either Pakistan or Afghanistan, both ostensibly allies in the war on terrorism -- finds it caught between a rock and a hard place.