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No, we went to Afghanistan to kill/capture those responsible AND prevent Afghanistan from ever again being used as a safe haven for those who would do us harm.
We have accomplished much of the first and are on the way to the latter....provided we are allowed to fight this fight like a true counter insurgency.
The Taliban has a near complete shadow government up and running across Afghanistan complete with courts, shadow sub-governors and people to handle the issues common to a normal government. It's success or failure depends largely on our ability to provide support to the Afghan People while simultaneously beating back the Taliban presence and (slowly) building capacity within the Afghan Government.
If we simply leave we will betray the hundreds of thousands of friendly, committed Afghans who have been working to rebuild their country and by doing so have entrusted their lives to our success. By pulling out and allowing the government to collapse those people will be executed, along with many of their families. Women will no longer be allowed to attend school; homosexuals will be tortured to death; radio, television, soccer, toys for children, phones, internet will all be banned; and Afghanistan will rapidly descend into the cesspool it was during the Taliban Regime.
If we stay and put forward a half-assed effort we will only delay the inevitable while US Soldiers continue to die.
If we do what the Commanding Officer of Afghanistan has asked, we stand a very good chance of hitting that hysteresis which allows us to build capacity in the Afghan government faster than the insurgency can tear it down...which will at first free up resources to focus on other things such as the humanitarian situation, corruption, etc. followed by the withdrawal of most of the troops which are now necessary in order to secure basic services.
The plan McCrystal has put forward is far more than a surge. It focuses heavily on engaging the local populations by providing enough soldiers to protect tribes/villages who want to stand up against the insurgents but who are repeatedly beat down when they try. Additionally, an increased presence will allow us to focus heavily on training the Afghan government, military and police while being able to better prevent corruption until the system grows strong enough to self-police.
Afghanistan will never be a shining light of democracy, and it will always be corrupt, but we can make it strong enough and 'honest' enough to function as a nation and to support basic freedoms while providing no harbor to extremists.
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"Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy, its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery." - Winston Churchill
"All men dream: but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds wake in the day to find that it was vanity: but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act out their dream with open eyes, to make it possible." Seven Pillars of Wisdom, T.E. Lawrence
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