By Alissa J. Rubin

New York Times News Service 

CHARIKAR, Afghanistan -- As Americans, including President Barack Obama's top advisers, tensely debate whether to send more U.S. troops to Afghanistan, Afghans themselves are having a similar discussion and voicing serious doubts.

In bazaars and university corridors across the country, eight years of war have left people exhausted and impatient. They are increasingly skeptical that the Taliban can be defeated. Nearly everyone agrees that the Afghan government must negotiate with the insurgents. If more U.S. forces do arrive, many here say, they should come to train Afghans to take over the fight, so the foreigners can leave.

"What have the Americans done in eight years?" said Abdullah Wasay, 60, a pharmacist in Charikar, about 25 miles north of Kabul, expressing a view typical of many here. "Americans are saying that with their planes they can see an egg 18 kilometers away, so why can't they see the Taliban?"

Such sentiments were repeated in conversation after conversation with more than 30 Afghans in Kabul and nearby rural areas and with local officials in outlying provinces.

If the foreign forces are not seen so by Afghans already, they are on the cusp of being regarded as occupiers, with little to show people for their extended presence, fueling wild conspiracies about why they remain here.

The feeling is particularly acute in the Pashtun south, but it is spreading to other parts of the country. More U.S. troops could tip the balance of opinion, particularly if they increase civilian casualties and prompt even more Taliban attacks.

The grass-roots view among Afghans is at odds with those of top Afghan officials, as well as many U.S. military commanders, who strongly endorse a full-blown counterinsurgency strategy, including a large troop increase.

The aim of sending more troops would be to help secure Afghanistan's biggest cities and towns to make the population feel safe and in doing so to show that the foreign presence can bring benefits.

Daily life continues to be so precarious for many people interviewed, especially those outside of Kabul, that they have come to believe that America must want the fighting to go on.

"In the first days of the war, the Americans defeated the Taliban in just a few days," said Mohammed Shefi, a graduate student in the pharmacy school at Kabul University. "Now they have more than 60,000 forces and they cannot defeat them."

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