"I like America," says thrice-deployed soldier

(1-32nd Infantry soldier holding a shoulder filed missle used at their combat outpost.)

"When I go home, I'm going to stay home," the young sergeant said.

We were sitting in the dark on top of a hill. This was his third deployment to Eastern Afghanistan.

"What about another deployment?" I asked.

"Only if I have to."

"So you never want to visit another country again?"

"Nope."

"What about on a vacation? Cancun? Europe, the French Riveria?" I asked, what of the world beyond switchback roads and goat herders?

"I like America," he said.

There's something sad and poignant about a young guy who's only experience travelling abroad is deploying to a war zone. As if he sees the rest of the world as a disfunctional, semi-dangerous pile of stones, behind which hide men who are trying to kill him.

A recent poll showed a majority of Americans don't think the war in Afghanistan is worth it. (51 percent now say the war in not worth fighting, up six percentage points since last month and 10 since March.) It's no coincidence this sentiment comes at the end of the bloodiest month for U.S. soldiers in the seven year war. 45 U.S. soldiers died this month, one more than inrecord-breaking July.

The President and top generals have been saying it's going to get worse before it gets better. That's a hard pill to swallow. The war seems endless. Measures of improvement are murky. They've been saying- Hey, we're sending soldiers into places where we essentially let the Taliban take over for a few years. Yeah, more U.S. boys will die before it gets better, but it will ultimately be worth it.

But the truth is only deaths and dollars make us listen. The news on these fronts is not good.

There's something ironic about a group of soliders who want nothing better than to go home and stay home, but would never volunteer to leave early if it meant ditching their buddies or their mission, and a U.S. population that now wakes from its recession stupor and remembers them, a flicker across the screen that more are dying in Afghanistan than ever before, and decides it wants to bring them home, regardless of what their mission was.

(Afghan soldiers preparing to go set up mountain outposts to fend off Taliban before the elections.)

On election day in Kunar province, where Taliban attacks have risen 47 percent between '07 and '08, the one U.S. casualty was a soldier killed by a Taliban mortar that hit the base. The soldier had only been in country a few days. These kind of deaths make no sense.

But Gen. McChrystal's new strategy is not focused on bringing in more "trigger pullers" to kill more Taliban. As my buddy Simon brought to my attention, as commander of Special Ops in Iraq, McChrystal basically tried to kill himself out of Iraq, and it didn't work, and as many insurgents as are being killed in Barg Matal (Nuristan province) by U.S. snipers and 10th Mountain infantry, where no reporters are allowed, they still keep coming over the mountain passes from Pakistan.

The U.S. cannot kill it's way to victory, and there's evidence that such insurgent deaths actually recruit more insurgents. The Pashtuns are know for their warrior society. Vengeance for a family member's life might take years, but it becomes a male's sole purpose.

So the argument is to isolate the Taliban by helping the average Afghan. This falls in with the counter insurgency strategy that money is a weapon more sustainable than the bullet. That renting a warlord is cheaper in both blood and treasure than trying to kill him.

The recent discussion on Room for Debate "Is It Time to Negotiate With the Taliban?" brought a load of nuanced diplomatic and NGO perspectives who all basically agreed Yes. The majority of those who we call the Taliban, are a disparate bunch of warlords and fighters each with different greivances and price tags. Basically they will continue fighting as they have for decades unless U.S. and NATO forces engineer ways to bring them to the table, and hold them accountable for providing security. It worked with the Sheiks in Anbar.

In most areas of operation there's signs that U.S.-funded men with guns will increasingly be propped up to guard their own villages, as they were in Iraq.

Back to the soldier on the hill. What would this young sergeant think of breaking bread with the Taliban as the way to turn the war? Probably he'd be disgusted with the idea. Their outpost has been attacked 47 times. They still have five more months here. He'd probably tell me that the Afghan leaders are all crooked, crooks and liars. But that the average Afghan, like the kid who brought him some fresh bread from the market after days of packaged MRE's, is pretty cool.

But as his company commander so deftly said, "they (Afghans) won't accept moral judgement from us." We need to build some foundations for stability. Or risk building nothing.

"A Jeffersonian Democracy is not going to break out any time soon," the commander said.

Which is what we have, a Jeffersonian Democracy, compared to almost anywhere in the world. And we have electricity, and we don't have to worry about insurgents seeping in from Canada to shoot at us, and women don't have to be locked indoors.

Maybe the young sergeant was right.