CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- Fourteen U.S. troops were killed in Afghanistan Monday, followed by eight more Tuesday, bringing the October toll to 55, the worst monthly loss. This painful tally is doubly tragic because most Americans now realize that the costly U.S. sacrifice in the wild mountain land accomplishes little.

Eight years ago, just after the historic 9/11 terrorism strike, it was appropriate for American forces to help northern tribes expel the fanatical Taliban regime that sheltered al-Qaida murderers. However, the Bush White House soon tired of Afghanistan and switched instead to the unnecessary Iraq invasion. Both Middle East war zones became quagmires.

Today, the Afghan struggle is futile, according to a gung-ho U.S. officer who worked hard in a combat region, then decided it was pointless. Former Marine Capt. Matthew Hoh went to southern Afghanistan as a State Department operative against Taliban insurgents. Now he has quit, submitting a damning letter of resignation, which was leaked in Tuesday's Washington Post.

Capt. Hoh wrote that primitive fundamentalist Afghan tribes are fighting simply because they consider U.S. soldiers to be foreign intruders in their country -- just as they previously considered Russian occupiers in the 1980s.

"Like the Soviets, we continue to secure and bolster a failing state, while encouraging an ideology and system of government unknown and unwanted by its people," his letter said.

Afghanistan is a feudal patchwork of "tribes, valleys, clans, villages and families," he wrote. Recurring conflict "has violently and savagely pitted the urban, secular, educated and modern of Afghanistan against the rural, religious, illiterate and traditional," he said. The latter segment of backward people drove out Russians two decades ago, and now they fight to expel Americans.

"I have observed that the bulk of the insurgency fights not for the white banner of the Taliban, but rather against the presence of foreign soldiers and taxes imposed by an unrepresentative government in Kabul," Capt. Hoh wrote.

The departing State Department agent said Washington misunderstood the Afghan enemy -- and sent young Americans to die for bungled reasons. If Washington really intends to attack places where al-Qaida breeds, he wrote, it "would require us to additionally invade and occupy western Pakistan, Somalia, Sudan, Yemen, etc." -- as well as Western Europe, where Muslim fanatic cells proliferate.

The ex-Marine captain likened the U.S. role in Afghanistan to that of King Sisyphus, who was condemned to push a boulder up a hill, from whence it endlessly rolled down and had to be pushed up again. "We are mortgaging our nation's economy on a war which, even with increased commitment, will remain a draw for years to come," he said.

President Obama is pondering whether to send more U.S. troops as a "surge" into Afghanistan. If he does so, it will echo the sad U.S. escalation in Vietnam a generation ago, which never produced victory. We think Obama should try instead to extract America from the endless nightmare in the Afghan mountains.

CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- Fourteen U.S. troops were killed in Afghanistan Monday, followed by eight more Tuesday, bringing the October toll to 55, the worst monthly loss. This painful tally is doubly tragic because most Americans now realize that the costly U.S. sacrifice in the wild mountain land accomplishes little.

Eight years ago, just after the historic 9/11 terrorism strike, it was appropriate for American forces to help northern tribes expel the fanatical Taliban regime that sheltered al-Qaida murderers. However, the Bush White House soon tired of Afghanistan and switched instead to the unnecessary Iraq invasion. Both Middle East war zones became quagmires.

Today, the Afghan struggle is futile, according to a gung-ho U.S. officer who worked hard in a combat region, then decided it was pointless. Former Marine Capt. Matthew Hoh went to southern Afghanistan as a State Department operative against Taliban insurgents. Now he has quit, submitting a damning letter of resignation, which was leaked in Tuesday's Washington Post.

Capt. Hoh wrote that primitive fundamentalist Afghan tribes are fighting simply because they consider U.S. soldiers to be foreign intruders in their country -- just as they previously considered Russian occupiers in the 1980s.

"Like the Soviets, we continue to secure and bolster a failing state, while encouraging an ideology and system of government unknown and unwanted by its people," his letter said.

Afghanistan is a feudal patchwork of "tribes, valleys, clans, villages and families," he wrote. Recurring conflict "has violently and savagely pitted the urban, secular, educated and modern of Afghanistan against the rural, religious, illiterate and traditional," he said. The latter segment of backward people drove out Russians two decades ago, and now they fight to expel Americans.

"I have observed that the bulk of the insurgency fights not for the white banner of the Taliban, but rather against the presence of foreign soldiers and taxes imposed by an unrepresentative government in Kabul," Capt. Hoh wrote.

The departing State Department agent said Washington misunderstood the Afghan enemy -- and sent young Americans to die for bungled reasons. If Washington really intends to attack places where al-Qaida breeds, he wrote, it "would require us to additionally invade and occupy western Pakistan, Somalia, Sudan, Yemen, etc." -- as well as Western Europe, where Muslim fanatic cells proliferate.

The ex-Marine captain likened the U.S. role in Afghanistan to that of King Sisyphus, who was condemned to push a boulder up a hill, from whence it endlessly rolled down and had to be pushed up again. "We are mortgaging our nation's economy on a war which, even with increased commitment, will remain a draw for years to come," he said.

President Obama is pondering whether to send more U.S. troops as a "surge" into Afghanistan. If he does so, it will echo the sad U.S. escalation in Vietnam a generation ago, which never produced victory. We think Obama should try instead to extract America from the endless nightmare in the Afghan mountains.