How About Another Victory Column Speech or Two?

Now comes the hard part of actually winning the war in Afghanistan. Replacing a commander was easy. That was the job of an afternoon. The long hard slog of fighting and winning lies ahead of us.

We've suffered 183 casualties so far in Afghanistan this year. Based on the same monthly intensity as last year, we're on our way to suffering 675 casualties for the entire year. This is ahead of even my estimate of 573 for all of 2010 based on 2009 casualty rates.

This doesn't mean we are losing, of course. It means, in part, that there is more combat with more troops involved. Winning or losing while we endure those casualties is another matter altogether. I don't think we are even close to losing this war, but casualties will be used by those poised to retreat to argue that we are losing.

This is no longer the "good war" for many Americans who previously shielded themselves from accusations of being defeatists for their advocacy of retreat from Iraq by claiming to support the "real war" in Afghanistan. Apparently, Afghanistan is also becoming the "war of choice."

The president really needs to deploy his purported oratorical abilities to bolster support for the Afghanistan campaign. One of my constant complaints about Bush was his failure to consistently speak to the American people about why we needed to support the war until victory. We managed--barely--to keep public support long enough to win the war in Iraq without such an effort, but that doesn't mean we can count on that luck again in Afghanistan.

I sometimes worry that the war is merely a distraction for our president who hopes to transform our country into a social democracy along the lines of France. I hope that isn't the case. War is serious and we all lose if President Obama loses the war.

Not to mention the troops who will die for nothing if we withdraw from a winnable war before we achieve victory. And not to mention the people who will die here if our jihadi enemies then use a sanctuary in Afghanistan or Pakistan (you don't think Pakistan will continue their war on their jihadis if we bug out of Afghansitan, do you?) to plan, organize, and execute an attack on our country.

Lead us to victory, Mr. President.