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The war in Afghanistan is over: we lost. (2 Viewers)

Confidential documents reveal U.S. officials failed to tell the truth about the war in Afghanistan

A confidential trove of government documents obtained by The Washington Post reveals that senior U.S. officials failed to tell the truth about the war in Afghanistan throughout the 18-year campaign, making rosy pronouncements they knew to be false and hiding unmistakable evidence the war had become unwinnable. 

The documents were generated by a federal project examining the root failures of the longest armed conflict in U.S. history. They include more than 2,000 pages of previously unpublished notes of interviews with people who played a direct role in the war, from generals and diplomats to aid workers and Afghan officials. 

The U.S. government tried to shield the identities of the vast majority of those interviewed for the project and conceal nearly all of their remarks. The Post won release of the documents under the Freedom of Information Act after a three-year legal battle. 

In the interviews, more than 400 insiders offered unrestrained criticism of what went wrong in Afghanistan and how the United States became mired in nearly two decades of warfare. 

 
There are so many different ways we can go with this.  Blame the past or plan for the future.

Trump is trying to get a peace agreement with the Taliban, but even if successful, it doesn't solve the problems in Afghanistan.  We could pull out tomorrow and Afghanistan would be no worse off.

America on the other hand will have to find a new way to milk the American people for tax dollars and start a new conflict somewhere else to keep that revenue flowing.  "war" is a business now, until we get out of that mindset, we are destined to repeat this cycle. 

 
bananafish said:
My god, what a damning indictment of...everyone. Parties, Presidents, Generals, everyone. I can't even wrap my head around it properly. We don't agree on many things, but you get an A+ on your skepticism of the military-industrial complex and the abdication of leadership by everyone involved, especially Obama. He was in the best position to do something about it, and...nothing.

I feel like everyone in Washington should stop what they're doing this very second to read and respond to this report, but would anything really change? What a colossal waste.

"We didn't know who we were fighting, why we were fighting them, or what we were doing there" for 18 ####### years. This should be an atom bomb in the heart of government, but I just looked at Twitter and four hours later the story has 118 likes. I don't know whether to cry or scream or puke.
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Yep, thank you and agreed 100%.  Stuff like this has been sidelined by the impeachment circus- much like the Russia investigation sidelined other issues before that.  I don’t mean to blame Obama alone either, just this is the only Afghanistan thread I saw.  It is Trump’s failure now- although the immediate backlash against him for collaborating with the Taliban tells us a lot about the bipartisan consensus for neverending wars.  

 
Anyone know the current crop of D's stance on ending the War in AFG?

I was pretty sure Pete and Tulsi were in support of ending it.  Not sure on the rest. 

 
ren hoek said:
Yep, thank you and agreed 100%.  Stuff like this has been sidelined by the impeachment circus- much like the Russia investigation sidelined other issues before that.  I don’t mean to blame Obama alone either, just this is the only Afghanistan thread I saw.  It is Trump’s failure now- although the immediate backlash against him for collaborating with the Taliban tells us a lot about the bipartisan consensus for neverending wars.  
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This has been sidelined by most politicians through three administrations and not just because of what has been going on the past three years.  

Is it the Foreign Relations Committee that should be reviewing this?  Some of the biggest Senate names on both sides of the isle sit on that committee.  

 
Max Power said:
Anyone know the current crop of D's stance on ending the War in AFG?

I was pretty sure Pete and Tulsi were in support of ending it.  Not sure on the rest. 
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Pete's review of his service time has always included that by the time he got over there it felt like they were already withdrawing.  Which makes sense, since Obama pulled out the vast majority of troops.  Trump increased the number again, but I think the Obama administration took troop levels from 100,000 to about 9,000.

My impression has always been that he approved of withdrawal and wanted it to be finished.

 
Sadly, batting 2/2 on war approaches here.  I am absolutely not surprised at this news.  While it sucked at the time being against both the war in Iraq and the subsequent move to Afghanistan, it turns out the hunches and predictions were true.  This is a time where I wish they hadn't been, but here we are.

 
This morning after I got off shift I walked back to my barracks. I started changing out of my work clothes into something to sleep in when I was absolutely rocked by an explosion.  My room filled with all the loose dust and dirt, the smoke alarm went off.  Everything on my dresser and nightstand flew off and my Chigo (heating/ac) unit fell out of the wall. 

I've had my fair share of indirect fire events over the years, typically rockets and mortars. The closest hit about 50 yards from me once and that was pretty intense.  This was on another level. I thought a rocket hit the room next to me. I threw on my battle gear while half naked and tried to go check on the situation.  My door had jammed shut, so had to kick it open.  I see a couple coworkers in the hallway trying to figure out what happened as well.  I don't see any damage, but we hear another explosion so we book it to the bunker. The bunker is concrete hardened as apposed to our rooms which are cheaply made trailers. 

Alarms are going off and we start hearing ground based fire. This is a bad bad sign.  Alarm starts the perimeter breach siren. We hang in the bunker for another minute or two before we all agree that the gunfire is getting closer and start hearing rounds.  We move from the bunker away from the incoming fire and work our way to our ops center. 

Once in there we find out its a VBIED, IDF and ground coordinated attack on the base. I was about 250 yards from the VBIED.

We just got the situation under control a couple hours ago.  Our barracks are all jacked up.  Missing walls, shrapnel holes, doors off hinges, flooding.   Our flight line passenger terminal is a mess, one of our 3 chow halls is closed, half of the bathrooms are out of order and the gym is closed.  It will take a couple weeks minimum to repair all the damage.  

 
Max Power said:
This morning after I got off shift I walked back to my barracks. I started changing out of my work clothes into something to sleep in when I was absolutely rocked by an explosion.  My room filled with all the loose dust and dirt, the smoke alarm went off.  Everything on my dresser and nightstand flew off and my Chigo (heating/ac) unit fell out of the wall. 

I've had my fair share of indirect fire events over the years, typically rockets and mortars. The closest hit about 50 yards from me once and that was pretty intense.  This was on another level. I thought a rocket hit the room next to me. I threw on my battle gear while half naked and tried to go check on the situation.  My door had jammed shut, so had to kick it open.  I see a couple coworkers in the hallway trying to figure out what happened as well.  I don't see any damage, but we hear another explosion so we book it to the bunker. The bunker is concrete hardened as apposed to our rooms which are cheaply made trailers. 

Alarms are going off and we start hearing ground based fire. This is a bad bad sign.  Alarm starts the perimeter breach siren. We hang in the bunker for another minute or two before we all agree that the gunfire is getting closer and start hearing rounds.  We move from the bunker away from the incoming fire and work our way to our ops center. 

Once in there we find out its a VBIED, IDF and ground coordinated attack on the base. I was about 250 yards from the VBIED.

We just got the situation under control a couple hours ago.  Our barracks are all jacked up.  Missing walls, shrapnel holes, doors off hinges, flooding.   Our flight line passenger terminal is a mess, one of our 3 chow halls is closed, half of the bathrooms are out of order and the gym is closed.  It will take a couple weeks minimum to repair all the damage.  
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Jesus.  Glad you got in under control.   Can't imagine how insane that would be.

 
badmojo1006 said:
Hey Tim, can you change the title? Hasn't been Obama's war in three years
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I thought about it. But it's still his failure, more than Bush, more than Trump, IMO.

Obama had the sweet spot that neither Bush nor Trump has had: a stable Afghan government allied to us, a stable Pakistan allied to us, Taliban weakened and on the run. That was the window to come up with a plan to end the war, and it wasn't a long window. But that's when we should have done it.

 
Henry Ford said:
Jesus.  Glad you got in under control.   Can't imagine how insane that would be.
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Thanks.  Not to be that guy who says something like this puts things into perspective, but it does.  It makes little squabbles in life seem so petty and makes me appreciate just how good we have it in America even more. 

 
Max Power said:
Thanks.  Not to be that guy who says something like this puts things into perspective, but it does.  It makes little squabbles in life seem so petty and makes me appreciate just how good we have it in America even more. 
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I'm sure.  Glad you made it through, and hope you don't have any more incidents like this.

How long are you over there? 

 
Henry Ford said:
I'm sure.  Glad you made it through, and hope you don't have any more incidents like this.

How long are you over there? 
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4 months total.  I'll be back Mid-March.

So this is usually the more laid back season.  Bagram is up in the mountains so it gets real cold during winter.  These people generally don't pull this crap as much when it gets cold.  We're all kind of hoping they just shot their big shot and don't have much left in reserve at the moment. 

 
https://www.cnn.com/2020/02/29/politics/us-taliban-deal-signing/index.html

Washington (CNN)After a week-long "reduction in violence," the US and Taliban signed a historic agreement Saturday which sets into motion the potential of a full withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan and could pave the way to ending America's longest-fought war.

The agreement was signed in Doha, Qatar, by US Special Representative for Afghanistan Reconciliation Zalmay Khalilzad -- the chief US negotiator in the talks with the Taliban -- and Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar -- the Taliban's chief negotiator. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo witnessed the signing.

The "Agreement for Bringing Peace to Afghanistan" outlines a series of commitments from the US and the Taliban related to troop levels, counterterrorism, and the intra-Afghan dialogue aimed at bringing about "a permanent and comprehensive ceasefire."

"This is a hopeful moment, but it's only the beginning," Pompeo said at a news conference in the Qatari capital Saturday. "There's a great deal of hard work ahead on the diplomatic front."

The Taliban "will start intra-Afghan negotiations with Afghan sides on March 10, 2020," according to the text of the agreement.

The agreement lays out a 14-month timetable for the withdrawal of "all military forces of the United States, its allies, and Coalition partners, including all non-diplomatic civilian personnel, private security contractors, trainers, advisors, and supporting services personnel."

An initial drawdown to 8,600 troops would occur within the first 135 days, according to the agreement. US officials have stressed that any downsizing of US troop presence would be "conditions based."
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SaintsInDome2006 said:
Summary of the deal by Brett McGurk.
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Yeah, reading about it in the ny times, it seems like lots of concessions to the taliban, putting the taliban back in power, and getting very little to show for it in terms of conditions.

but at the end of the day, it was a sunk cost and I don’t know what the road map was for making it any better by staying.  Though who knows what we will do going forward.  Trump will certainly crow about the initial drawdown and can point to that for however long he wants, regardless of what else we decide to do.

 
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-51706126

The Taliban are to resume attacks against government forces, just days after signing a deal with the US aimed at bringing peace to Afghanistan.

The hard-line Islamist group had observed a "reduction in violence" in the week leading up to the agreement.

The deal included a commitment to hold peace talks with the Afghan government.

But the group's spokesman said on Monday the talks would not go ahead if 5,000 Taliban prisoners held by the government were not released.

But on Sunday, Afghanistan's President Ashraf Ghani told reporters his government had agreed to no such release.

"There is no commitment to releasing 5,000 prisoners," Mr Ghani said. "This is the right and the self-will of the people of Afghanistan. It could be included in the agenda of the intra-Afghan talks, but cannot be a prerequisite for talks."
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What have the Taliban said?

The Taliban said they would resume fighting Afghan forces, but would not target international troops.
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Differing US documents helped fuel Afghan prisoner dispute 

 The United States helped fuel a dispute between the Taliban and the Afghan government over prisoner releases that threatens U.S. peace efforts by using different language in documents it agreed with each side, sources familiar with the matter said on Monday.

The U.S.-Taliban deal says the Afghan government will free up to 5,000 Taliban detainees by March 10, while the U.S.-Afghan declaration commits the Kabul government only to taking part in U.S.-brokered talks on the “feasibility” of such a release.

The issue has emerged as a fresh impediment to peace talks between the insurgents and a yet-to-be-named Kabul delegation that are to begin on March 10 under the U.S.-Taliban agreement for a U.S. troop withdrawal from Afghanistan signed on Saturday.

The Taliban on Monday said they would not participate in the so-called intra-Afghan peace talks until Afghan President Ashraf Ghani’s government releases about 5,000 military and political prisoners.

Ghani on Sunday said the issue cannot be a precondition to the peace talks and will have to be worked out in negotiations. “It is not in the authority of United States to decide, they are only a facilitator,” he said.
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That seems "wicked smaht"

 
Don't Toews Me said:
https://twitter.com/hxhassan/status/1328378494611492865?s=20

https://www.brookings.edu/blog/order-from-chaos/2020/11/17/the-death-of-ayman-al-zawahri-and-the-future-of-al-qaida/?preview_id=1195714

Zawahiri might be dead. Need confirmation. 
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I don't know why we care about these things any more.  It should be clear that these groups are all "next man up" and don't really miss a beat...doesn't matter who we kill.  Hopefully one day, we understand that and adjust accordingly.  

 
Closing down our main base today. 
 

20 years. Our longest war ever. And we lost. As soon as we leave, the Taliban is taking over. Just like Vietnam in 1975. What a total waste of blood and treasure, 

This is one where none of us get to point at the other side: it’s not a Democrat or Republican thing. Not conservative or liberal. Practically the entire nation was for this. I heard plenty of arguments about Iraq over the years but very little about Afghanistan. Until, exhausted, people started saying “ok when can we leave?” about 10 years ago. But nobody did. 
 

This is Bush’s fault. And Obama’s. And Trump’s. And Biden’s. It’s on all of us. What have we learned? 

 
timschochet said:
Closing down our main base today. 
 

20 years. Our longest war ever. And we lost. As soon as we leave, the Taliban is taking over. Just like Vietnam in 1975. What a total waste of blood and treasure, 

This is one where none of us get to point at the other side: it’s not a Democrat or Republican thing. Not conservative or liberal. Practically the entire nation was for this. I heard plenty of arguments about Iraq over the years but very little about Afghanistan. Until, exhausted, people started saying “ok when can we leave?” about 10 years ago. But nobody did. 
 

This is Bush’s fault. And Obama’s. And Trump’s. And Biden’s. It’s on all of us. What have we learned? 
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I never agreed with either of the two wars started after 9/11 but as soon as Bin Laden was dead we should have declared victory and left.

 
The problem was that Iraq and Afghanistan were not good candidates to declare that the mission was to build democracies out of nothing. Iran was all ready, with protestors willing to die and be jailed by the clerics, and we stood by and let their autocracy flourish. We misdirected our energies to Afghanistan and Iraq. It has recently come to light that the people of the Middle East, given the restriction of information there, were stunned up to and including their leaders, that the U.S. military was so mighty in defeating Iraq's ground army. It took weeks, not even months.

If we'd stuck to what should be the origins of military endeavors - to kill and win - then we would be able to declare victory, and declare victory easily. But since we went Wilsonian, we failed at our ultimate goal.

We did not lose these wars, though. We simply were unable to install democracy in a region going through a Dark Ages.

 
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And if one looks at the ultimate goal of the military endeavors, which should have been to stop isolated attacks on our soil, we succeeded and handily.

Nobody can overestimate the power of winning a war in three weeks over the mightiest military in a region. Just crushed the spirits of the would-be dictators over there until they could go nuclear.

 
rockaction said:
And if one looks at the ultimate goal of the military endeavors, which should have been to stop isolated attacks on our soil, we succeeded and handily.

Nobody can overestimate the power of winning a war in three weeks over the mightiest military in a region. Just crushed the spirits of the would-be dictators over there until they could go nuclear. 
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But the terrifying truth is that’s always a question of when, not if. 

 
The more I type, the more I realize how hyperbolic the title of this now is. We didn't lose, we just ultimately failed to achieve a diplomatic win by achieving a detente and striking a power balance within the region, something that was pie-in-the-sky thinking.

If we were truly hegemonic like some people claim, we'd simply leave our military there and colonize the godforsaken places there.

 
timschochet said:
But the terrifying truth is that’s always a question of when, not if. 
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Right. So what to do? We've already exhausted the West's patience with preemptive strikes with just one that revealed no great nuclear or chemical or biological threat.

What to do next when a legitimate threat arises, like Iran going nuclear, which I started a thread on and got like three responses to.

 
rockaction said:
Right. So what to do? We've already exhausted the West's patience with preemptive strikes with just one that revealed no great nuclear or chemical or biological threat.

What to do next when a legitimate threat arises, like Iran going nuclear, which I started a thread on and got like three responses to.
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I don’t know what to do. I suspect the reason you only got 3 responses is because nobody knows what to do. 
We had a longer thread dealing with North Korea’s threat- probably it was longer because once Trump got involved that garnered a lot of discussion. But the main question of the thread, which is what the hell do we do about a nuclear North Korea? was never answered. 

 
Godsbrother said:
I never agreed with either of the two wars started after 9/11 but as soon as Bin Laden was dead we should have declared victory and left.
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The problem is that declaring victory does nothing. Saying "Mission Accomplished" when your goal is completely unaccomplished makes you a subject of ridicule.

The problem was in the broadness of the goal. We clearly won when it came to the defeat and humiliation of Middle East "powers" after 9/11. Rumsfeld, RIP, and Cheney achieved their off-the-record goal of complete fear and cowering by the Middle East in response to our military might.

We ultimately failed at the game we often fail at unless the world has been decimated, which is diplomacy and reconstruction of conquered areas. There is no doubt who won in Afghanistan and Iraq, the problem is that the vacuum we left was so great that it beggars description to democratically-prejudiced ears.

It's a massive diplomatic failure, not a military failure.

 
rockaction said:
The more I type, the more I realize how hyperbolic the title of this now is. We didn't lose, we just ultimately failed to achieve a diplomatic win by achieving a detente and striking a power balance within the region, something that was pie-in-the-sky thinking.

If we were truly hegemonic like some people claim, we'd simply leave our military there and colonize the godforsaken places there.
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I don’t think it’s hyperbolic because over the next few months I fully anticipate we’re going to witness a triumphant Taliban marching into Kabul, followed by brutal and savage large massacres of people. In other words just like 1975 Saigon. The fact that we’re going to have to watch this sort of thing twice in some of our lifetimes is…unspeakable.

As you know my grandparents and dad were Holocaust survivors. Their favorite saying was “Never again.” And yet we see one genocide after another. They might as well have changed that saying to “always again.” 

 
timschochet said:
I don’t know what to do. I suspect the reason you only got 3 responses is because nobody knows what to do. 
We had a longer thread dealing with North Korea’s threat- probably it was longer because once Trump got involved that garnered a lot of discussion. But the main question of the thread, which is what the hell do we do about a nuclear North Korea? was never answered. 
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And can't be. The powers that be in autocracies or dictatorships know that their only way onto the world stage is through nuclear weapons. There can be no response, then, to these countries' horribleness because of the nature of that which they possess. The weapons are diabolical, much like guns must have seemed to a indigenous person in the 1700s.

Guns, bullets, missiles, bombs. All of these have not advanced humanity much but for the suffering they caused. One can say that colonization by might led to enlightened political thought and the efficient use of resources by privatizing them, but you won't convince me that this weaponry has advanced the spirit of mankind one iota.

 
rockaction said:
And can't be. The powers that be in autocracies or dictatorships know that their only way onto the world stage is through nuclear weapons. There can be no response, then, to these countries' horribleness because of the nature of that which they possess. The weapons are diabolical, much like guns must have seemed to a indigenous person in the 1700s.

Guns, bullets, missiles, bombs. All of these have not advanced humanity much but for the suffering they caused. One can say that colonization by might led to enlightened political thought and the efficient use of resources by privatizing them, but you won't convince me that this weaponry has advanced the spirit of mankind one iota.
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Tremendous post. 

 
timschochet said:
I don’t think it’s hyperbolic because over the next few months I fully anticipate we’re going to witness a triumphant Taliban marching into Kabul, followed by brutal and savage large massacres of people. In other words just like 1975 Saigon. The fact that we’re going to have to watch this sort of thing twice in some of our lifetimes is…unspeakable.

As you know my grandparents and dad were Holocaust survivors. Their favorite saying was “Never again.” And yet we see one genocide after another. They might as well have changed that saying to “always again.” 
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To co-exist with evil is a distinctly tough task, one that takes a mature and patient and stoic mind, one with belief at its core.

When you say "never again," like an Elie Wiesel, you're not saying it out of any tangible certitude that it won't or can't happen again. You say it in hopes that people realize the degradation of the victims of genocide, the horror that it is, and that in the end they will refuse to see anything as subhuman (you see what happens to your average weak animal on this planet) and treat a person as such. But it is a hope-laden statement, nothing else.

 
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rockaction said:
The more I type, the more I realize how hyperbolic the title of this now is. We didn't lose, we just ultimately failed to achieve a diplomatic win by achieving a detente and striking a power balance within the region, something that was pie-in-the-sky thinking.

If we were truly hegemonic like some people claim, we'd simply leave our military there and colonize the godforsaken places there.
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We have been unable or unwilling to admit that sometimes having strongmen like Mubarak, Assad, and even Saddam are better for our interests than the alternatives.  The alternatives to those dictators aren't some benevolent democracy.

We aren't hegemonic, we had the power to milk those places for the resources they had and profit from it.  That was never done, nor the intent.  Some people claiming that are merely speaking in hyperbole or from an uniformed mindset.

 
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timschochet said:
I don’t think it’s hyperbolic because over the next few months I fully anticipate we’re going to witness a triumphant Taliban marching into Kabul, followed by brutal and savage large massacres of people. In other words just like 1975 Saigon. The fact that we’re going to have to watch this sort of thing twice in some of our lifetimes is…unspeakable.

As you know my grandparents and dad were Holocaust survivors. Their favorite saying was “Never again.” And yet we see one genocide after another. They might as well have changed that saying to “always again.” 
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The Taliban may well take over Kabul and most of the country.  We likely will return to the status quo of some 20 years ago where pockets of the country are controlled by various tribes or warlords.  We failed to learn what the Soviets were forced to learn long before us.

I'm critical of President Biden plenty, but I'm glad we are finally putting an end to this.  The objective we had is not attainable.

 
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Shula-holic said:
We have been unable or unwilling to admit that sometimes having strongmen like Mubarak, Assad, and even Saddam are better for our interests than the alternatives.  The alternatives to those dictators aren't some benevolent democracy.
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Absolutely true and this goes back just over 100 years to the philosophy of Woodrow Wilson, as @rockaction correctly notes, which somehow we have never been able to escape and which most of our leaders, particularly George W Bush, fully embraced: we have this romantic notion that democracy produces a good result. But in fact, history demonstrates that democracy by itself leads to bad results just as often, or perhaps more often. 

 
Max Power said:
We've already lost our next war. We just haven't admitted it yet. 
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What's our next war? We've fought so many "wars" on so many fronts that I'm not sure what you're getting at. We're not losing a collectively-sanctified military endeavor, that's for sure.

 
Max Power said:
Information, Technology, and cyber. We're currently not in dominant positions compared to our near peer adversaries. 

Our next war will have a lot less shot fired
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Got it. You might be totally right and I walk back that last statement I made.

 
I think my bold statement we wouldn't lose a collective military endeavor is exactly why we might. I hadn't even considered the cyber aspect of things, which could throw things into such a tailspin as not to recover and be without essentials that we need. Truly staggering, the thought that they could get into power grids and essentially shut down cities.

 
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rockaction said:
I think my bold statement we wouldn't lose a collective military endeavor is exactly why we might. I hadn't even considered the cyber aspect of things, which could throw things into such a tailspin as not to recover and be without essentials that we need. Truly staggering, the thought that they could get into power grids and essentially shut down cities.
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While the US has been engaged in terrorist warfare for the last 20 years, countries like China and Russia have been able to invest in "nextgen" warfare. 

A realistic expectation is that we haven't kept pace with them on this front. I think Space Force is a step in the right direction, but the US needs a massive overhaul in our basic military structure to make up ground. So far we haven't made those changes, but with nextgen warfare on the doorstep, I think we will.

 
rockaction said:
The problem is that declaring victory does nothing. Saying "Mission Accomplished" when your goal is completely unaccomplished makes you a subject of ridicule.

The problem was in the broadness of the goal. We clearly won when it came to the defeat and humiliation of Middle East "powers" after 9/11. Rumsfeld, RIP, and Cheney achieved their off-the-record goal of complete fear and cowering by the Middle East in response to our military might.

We ultimately failed at the game we often fail at unless the world has been decimated, which is diplomacy and reconstruction of conquered areas. There is no doubt who won in Afghanistan and Iraq, the problem is that the vacuum we left was so great that it beggars description to democratically-prejudiced ears.

It's a massive diplomatic failure, not a military failure.
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I don’t disagree.  It was foolish for us to engage in war there in the first place.  It is a cliche but true:  the problem with either was not going to be winning the war, it was winning the peace.

 
rockaction said:
The problem was that Iraq and Afghanistan were not good candidates to declare that the mission was to build democracies out of nothing. Iran was all ready, with protestors willing to die and be jailed by the clerisy, and we stood by and let their autocracy flourish. We misdirected our energies to Afghanistan and Iraq. It has recently come to light that the people of the Middle East, given the restriction of information there, were stunned up to and including their leaders, that the U.S. military was so mighty in defeating Iraq's ground army. It took weeks, not even months.

If we'd stuck to what should be the origins of military endeavors - to kill and win - then we would be able to declare victory, and declare victory easily. But since we went Wilsonian, we failed at our ultimate goal.

We did not lose these wars, though. We simply were unable to install democracy in a region going through a Dark Ages.
Click to expand...
& it's all too predictable.  Happens over & over.  In the mean time so many dead & mangled.    While it is a commendable endeavor on our part it is folly to think those we leave behind to carry the mantle of freedom will do so when the most immediate task at hand is to eat, pray, or gather up the herd.

sad really, but reality bites again.

 
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