Afghanistan, Towards a better land - Economist

PUT aside, for a moment, the vast costs of the long war in Afghanistan against the Taliban—in terms of the hundreds of billions of dollars spent and the lives lost since the American invasion in 2001. Put aside, too, the overblown and at times dishonest Western claims in the past about the kind of Afghanistan that would emerge. The question today is what prospects Afghanistan faces and how to realise the best outcome there. - Much has gone wrong in Afghanistan. But the progress that has been made should not be thrown away 
Afghanistan's hard road to 2014: All change - The Economist