They were busy...

The previous administration, that is. You see, Afghanistan was one of those horrible inconveniences that sprung up and got in the way of the scheduled invasion and subjugation of Iraq. And nothing was going to stop the creation of the neocon utopia. Year Zero in Iraq was so much more inviting to those pulling the strings of George W. Bush than, you know, actually dealing with the base from which the US had been attacked and had sheltered the nasty prick that had organized it.

Afghanistan? One hit wonder. Give it to NATO - based on the lie that it was already stabilized.

And Bushco left Afghanistan to fester while they pursued their mythical Iraqi gold-rush. (Emphasis mine)

More than a year after Barack Obama took office, the president is still discovering how bad things are. At a March 12 briefing on Afghanistan with his senior advisers, he asked whether the police will be ready when America's scheduled drawdown begins in July 2011, according to a senior official who was in the room. "It's inconceivable, but in fact for eight years we weren't training the police," replied Caldwell, taking part in the meeting via video link from Afghanistan. "We just never trained them before. All we did was give them a uniform." The president looked stunned. "Eight years," he said. "And we didn't train police? It's mind-boggling." The room was silent.

That's the easy-to-read part. It gets worse.

Hat tip Canadian Cynic