Afghanistan has become a clash of egos.

Afghanistan has become a battleground over an oil pipeline that could have been negotiated. Instead we are involved in a crisis from which 1752 NATO forces have already died and among them 1,061 US soldiers.

Afghanistan has little value other than strategic. Unless we consider the lavish poppy fields that dot the landscape and are a source of funding the war against the US occupation. Strangely these fields have multiplied since the CIA entered the picture, offering an observation that can’t be dismissed. Are these fields under CIA guardianship?

Given the history of the CIA, as has come to light from Vietnam and the golden triangle, and then under Oliver North, and Iran Contra, this question seems one that could have real significance.

Note: the war against the Taliban had been planned long before the world trade center attack. It was and always has been over resources, and poppy seeds are a resource, and a very valuable one. But even more valuable is the pipeline for oil which has now been completed. What few know is that talks with the Taliban over the pipeline were ongoing to the date of the invasion, and even after.

The US ousted the Taliban, but did we have that right? This is a question we must in the long term ask ourselves.

Since the Taliban were ousted the poppy farms have expanded markedly, now exceeding 100,000 acres. But even more strikingly we invaded Afghanistan under a false plethora of evidence as the Taliban had actually offered to turn Bin Laden over to the US .

Instead we invaded Afghanistan ! We must now step back and ask ourselves why? When we can look at the whole picture with our own introspect we will have a full understanding of what we have become

America has become egocentric, it is what we want that matters. And it has become easier to simply take it rather than to negotiate and pay for it. But in the long run it costs us more.

America ’s ego thought that our military power would crush any opposition, but what this ego failed to understand was that we have been fighting a ghost of ourselves. The lessons we knew from our own history, learned gallantly form the American Revolution.

No enemy can long endure when they are fighting on our shores, just as America is learning today. The Taliban are not the enemy to expel, we have become that enemy.

And with this in mind, the Taliban have planned an offensive against the US , it has been code named “al-Fatah”, which is the Arabic word for "victory".

The target, US forces, security contractors and Afghans working for them who are considered "the ears and eyes of the foreigners”

The new Taliban operation is to begin May 10, the day Hamid Karzai , Afghanistan 's president, arrives in Washington for a four day visit. Karzai wants to convince Obama that peace with the Taliban is the only real and long term solution.

Even as we agree, the question: Will Washington ’s ego allow this resolution of a confrontation that all evidence suggests we are losing?