Am currently reading many a books on recent wars (Vietnam onwards, mostly Afghanistan at the moment) written by the soldiers, or upon interviews of soldiers. Many of the reports from soldiers give the impression that they, the people who are fighting on our behalf and, most importantly, for the Afghani population, believe that the worlds support is needed in the way of security for the mean time, and a large-scale training section to allow the Afghan people to be governed effectively and also have a non-corrupt police and military to provide security and peace.
I distinctly remember one high ranking officer from UK's 3 para, the outfit responsible for Helmand province in the south, saying that it must be done in 3 stages. (May not be word for word, but the gist is there)
1)UN security force responsible for all security, whilst training of local forces
2)Transition to support the Afghan forces, taking a back seat so to speak
3)Full control given to Afghan forces
In about late 08 early 09 (when the book was written), he said they were finally starting, albeit slowly, to enter stage 2.
Many of the accounts from soldiers say that they are well received in many a town, as (most of the time), peace and security is brought along with the soldiers, as well as a symbol of things to come. Many of the locals will stop and have coffee with them etc (weather this is for politeness or actual thanks is not known), but i think the majority of Afghani people want a better standard of living, away from the Taliban and away from selling opium to make ends meet.
So, my thoughts. I think that we should stay committed, as pulling out too early will be both bad for us, as the Taliban will treat it as a victory and continue to reign terror and essentially run Afghanistan, and even worse for the people of Afghanistan, with death, destruction and essentially governed by an extremist group. I do believe that it is going to take quite a long time (probably another 10 years, possibly more) to build the infrastructure and training necessary to allow the Afghan people to govern and protect themselves. It is just an unfortunate, but necessary by-product, that this will require the loss of lives of those who raise their hand to join the defence forces and go to Afghanistan. I do believe that this is a view shared by those who go there, as many of these soldiers return for multiple tours, and state that it is helping the people just a little bit.
I will admit that i am not the one over there fighting the war, but those who are seem to think it is necessary, so I believe that we should do what they think, and not what the numpties we vote in every few years think.