The commander of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan on Wednesday acknowledged the Taliban gained a propaganda victory in a 20-hour assault focused on the U.S. Embassy, which left 27 police, civilians and insurgents dead. But he insisted the attack was not a sign of vulnerability in the Afghan capital.
It is only a propaganda victory if our media goes along with it, hyping the raid as yet another sign of the imminence of a "resurgent" Taliban who never seem to do more than create a spasm of violence instead of a vaunted spring, summer, or fall offensive.
We continue to win this war. At best, the Kabul raid was a Doolittle Raid designed to prove the Taliban can still strike. But unless there is power coming behind that raid, it is meaningless in the general trend.
The general trend, as far as I can see, is that we are winning. Which is why I have complained only about the image of a too-fast surge withdrawal rather than the withdrawal of our surge forces itself. Obviously, safe havens in Pakistan will limit how much we can beat the enemy down, but we can beat them down inside Afghanistan to be a problem that can be contained by local forces even without the surge forces.
As for the Taliban raid, our side--including the Afghans--reacted well and destroyed the raiders. While it is obviously of great concern to find out who was bribed to help get the attackers in position (or cooperated from loyalty to the Taliban), let's not blow this out of proportion.
The only difference between this fight in which a number of Taliban were killed and other fights where we kill off a bunch of Taliban out in the hills is that this fight took place close to cameras and reporters.
Killing Osama bin Laden was no reason to declare victory and go home. This battle is no reason to declare defeat and go home. What is disturbing is that too many Americans are more than willing to argue either point as long as we go home.
UPDATE: Michael O'Hanlon doesn't see the raid as a sign of doom:
Rarely during this, admittedly, endless war have news outlets gotten the story so wrong. But they owe better analysis to their readers, as the nation confronts hard choices in the months ahead about its Afghanistan strategy, and as many Americans already have a pessimistic sense of the conflict’s current trajectory.
O'Hanlon, until his shocking summer 2007 public defense of the results of the Iraq surge, didn't impress me much. I sometimes shook my head in wonder at what he was thinking. Since then, he's had a much more sober response to war events.
He even has a point that it isn't as easy as saying the press is biased against America. Some are, to be sure. But so much of it is that the press corps--with few exceptions--has no clue about military matters or history. They cover war with a lack of subject matter expertise that would be considered unacceptable for covering Broadway plays or fashion shows in Milan.
