Welcome to the Beginning of the End of the Afghan War?

clipped from www.timesonline.co.uk First US official resigns over Afghanistan war Matthew Hoh, 36, a former captain in the Marine Corps who fought in Iraq before joining the US State department, resigned from his post as the senior US civilian in Zabul province, a Taleban stronghold in Afghanistan. He said that he believed the war only fuelled the insurgency, the Washington Post reports. "I have doubts and reservations about our current strategy and planned future strategy, but my resignation is based not upon how we are pursuing this war, but why and to what end." He said that many Afghans were fighting the United States largely because its troops were there. While the Taleban was a malign presence, and al-Qaeda needed to be confronted, he said, the US was asking its troops to die in Afghanistan for what was essentially a far-off civil war.