The formerly "good" war in Afghanistan is now getting the nuanced treatment of proclaiming it to be a sure loss if only you understand the war well enough:
America’s unwise, unwarranted, and sadly unwinnable war in Afghanistan—hastily initiated and then abandoned for Iraq by President Barack Obama’s ideologically blinded predecessor and dumped into Obama’s lap in the worst possible way—is beginning increasingly to smell like the 1964-68 war in South Vietnam that swallowed up the presidency of Lyndon B. Johnson.
Get that? "Sadly unwinnable." Oh, if only Sorensen believed the war winnable! Then he'd go to the gates of Hell to achieve victory. Alas, it is not to be for Sorensen. Add in unwise and unwarranted for the full Monty of retreat advocacy.
Of course, the title to the article gives the game away: "America's Next Unwinnable War." So the last one was Iraq? The one his side says we had to lose? Sadly for him, we won that war. So, no, not iraq. It is Vietnam the author reaches back to as the last unwinnable war. The war we could have won but for the anti-war Left snatching defeat from the jaws of victory by compelling the Ford administration to abandon South Vietnam to the mechanized juggernaut that swept south from Hanoi into Saigon. The war no anti-war Leftist remotely understands, even as they cite it repeatedly as the reason to abandon any fight. That's the war.
We are not doomed to losing Afghanistan any more than we were doomed to lose in Iraq or Vietnam. Strategypage provides some perspective on the poor hand our enemies in Afghanistan are playing--as long as we don't fold and leave our four aces on the table convinced the Taliban have a royal flush:
If you look at this war from the viewpoint of the enemy, things don't look very good at all.
Read it all. And don't let panic--or false sophistication--guide our actions. Our anti-war class knows nothing of war or history, yet pretend to understand war so thoroughly that they know trying to win in Afghanistan (or anywhere, really) is futile.
The war is ours to lose. And God help us, our leaders may very well choose to lose.
