Well, so much for America being a safer nation than before 9/11 and the Iraq/Afghanistan war efforts.

The Pentagon released a disturbing report today noting that The Taliban has regrouped in Afghanistan and is likely to ramp up attacks in the near future.

According to the Pentagon report :

Noting that insurgent violence has climbed, the report said that despite U.S. and coalition efforts to capture and kill key leaders, the Taliban is likely to “maintain or even increase the scope and pace of its terrorist attacks and bombings in 2008.”

You may remember a post that I wrote just a few days ago about this very subject, where I talk about the fact that Terrorism is an ideal and it will never be defeated. We continue to look at Terrorism as this sort of physical entity that we can seek out and destroy, but it is my honest belief that it just does not work that way.

The problem here is that we continue to hear from this administration and the right-wing agenda that we are “making progress” and “we are succeeding” in the war on terror. While all of that was already in question, it is reports like this that confirm to the American people that our strategy is not working and we need a new direction.

McCain has said on more than a few occasions that we are succeeding, so it makes me wonder how he comes to that conclusion. Is it real (likely false) evidence? Or, is it John McCain once again pandering to his base as he has done so many times in this election? Either way, it is false, which we have pretty much known all along anyway.

Don’t get me wrong, I want us to succeed in these efforts, but not at such a cost that succeeding would be a loss no matter how victorious we appear to be in the end.