"Teamed up with General Dave Petraeus (Commander Central Command and responsible for the entire region), America now has two generals who understand how to fight on the battlefield, as well as in Washington for resources. Stan McChrystal made an assessment of the situation he inherited and immediately saw the mission/resource mismatch. His request for thirty-thousand additional troops, while not a political best-seller in Washington, came at a critical time to reverse the trend he found in Afghanistan- a growing insurgency, a reemerging Taliban, and a loss of confidence by the Afghan people, which undermines the confidence the international community has in Karazai. Today, it appears that Generals Petraeus and McChrystal (Commander U.S. Forces Afghanistan) are starting to turn things around. Only time will tell if the U.S. effort, as a part of NATO, will be able to leave behind a stable Afghanistan with a more sophisticated infrastructure and systems resembling today's more modern nations. For sure, it won't be easy or fast. But if we remember the conditions that led to 9/11 and take into consideration the possible outcome of an al-Qaeda-controlled Afghanistan that already has a toehold in Afghanistan's next-door, nuclear-armed neighbor, Pakistan, we just might conclude that the effort will be well worth it."