Key Democrats' disenchantment with the war in Afghanistan appeared to accelerate Monday with Rep. John P. Murtha's hardening opposition to sending more troops U.S. troops there.

"In Vietnam it took 500,000 troops and that didn't solve the problem. So we have to take a different approach," the chairman of the House Appropriations Committee's subcommittee on defense told my erstwhile CQ colleague Josh Rogin in his debut column at Foreign Policy online.

As U.S. commanders in Afghanistan ready plans to wipe out drug lords financing the Taliban, there's little they can do about insurgents' biggest source of cash: do-gooders.

According to a little noticed report last week, the mullahs and their henchmen are raking in hundreds of millions of dollars - some say a billion - annually by shaking down foreign organizations and contractors building schools, roads and bridges across the struggling nation.

It's a racket The Sopranos would love: In exchange for a hefty "fee," local Taliban commanders provide "protection" on a project, allowing construction to go forward unmolested.