Why Victory Will Not Happen In Afghanistan -- A Commentary

GENERALS' TALK - U.S. Army Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, commander of the International Security Assistance Force, and U.S. Marine Corps Maj. Gen. Richard P. Mills, commanding general of I Marine Expeditionary Force, take a brief tour of Forward Operating Base Marja, Helmand province, Afghanistan, May 20, 2010. U.S. Marine Corps photo by Lance Cpl. James Clark

Dying For The Karzai Cartel -- Anne Marlowe, National Review

Our strategy and tactics in Afghanistan, both of which make sense in theory, no longer apply.

The classic defense of our involvement in Afghanistan is that we need to make sure that Afghanistan never again becomes a sanctuary for al-Qaeda or other enemies of the United States. Ungoverned spaces attract terrorists, especially when they’re in bad neighborhoods. (See: Pakistan.)

That is strategy. The classic defense of our tactics is that we are fighting a counterinsurgency according to best practices, providing security to the people of Afghanistan so that they can choose to support their elected government rather than the insurgency. Everything our military does in Afghanistan is aimed at that goal. We are trying to train the Afghan security forces to the point where they can take over from us, just as the Iraqi security forces mainly have, and we can go home.

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My Comment: When conservative publications like The National Review publish stories like this one .... you just know that the war is lost .... doubly so when US forces start to leave Afghanistan in two years.