Asked whether Washington would approve an agreement between the Kabul government and Taliban guerrillas along similar lines, Gates replied: "If there is a reconciliation, if insurgents are willing to put down their arms, if the reconciliation is essentially on the terms being offered by the government then I think we would be very open to that.
This is not a "yes" in response to that question. Gates simply restated existing policy. If parts of the enemy are essentially willing to give up, regardless of what we call it, we'll let them switch sides. Not all Taliban are created alike, remember. Some who are called that are far from the hard-core terrorists we need to defeat.
We don't need to surrender because no matter how much our inept press insists we are losing based on our military casualties or civilian casualties, we simply are not losing and the statistics of these measures don't stand up to a quick analysis.
I know our Left is eager to surrender the "good war," too. That was never in doubt. But no matter how much the Left screeches about this supposed failure to excuse their growing strategy of running away, we are not losing.
Stop using the idea we are losing as an assumption when deciding what we should aim to achieve in Afghanistan and what we should commit to achieve that objective.
