This information will surely lead many to raise the pitch of their voice and insist that we think about heading for the exits:
A U.N. report released Saturday painted a grim picture of the security situation in Afghanistan, saying roadside bombings and assassinations have soared the first four months of the year amid ramped up military operations in the Taliban-dominated south.
The United Nations' findings appeared at odds with Pentagon assertions this week claiming slow-but-steady progress in Afghanistan — an assessment challenged by U.S. lawmakers during hearings on Capitol Hill.
This is akin to noting you've gained 5 pounds and concluding that you are taller.
You need to use the right measurement, and the level of violence is not a measure of whether we are winning a war. Consider the level of violence in France on June 5, 1944 and on June 6, 1944. Would you really insist that the dramatic spike in violence in France starting on June 6, 1944 meant that we were losing the war against the Nazis? Of course not, it would be stupid.
Likewise, the issue of winning and losing is separate from both the questions of what the level of violence is and whether the Taliban is stronger ("resurgent") or weaker over time.
The ultimate objective is to win and winning will dramatically lower the level of violence, of course. But that metric is a result of victory and not a metric of determining whether we are on the way to victory, or not.
Too many people here, like they were in regard to the Iraq War, are so eager to run away that they will seize on numbers they don't truly understand to justify retreat from Afghanistan.
Gosh, remember the days when Afghanistan was the "good war" we had to win?
