Not Losing in Afghanistan

Not Losing in Afghanistan – Washington Post op-ed by John Nagl.

Americans haven’t lost a war in so long, we’ve forgotten what doing so looks like – and what it costs. The only war that we undeniably lost was the Vietnam War; thrown out of the country literally under fire, we abandoned our allies to a horrific fate and left behind a legacy of terror in the region, breaking our Army in the process.

Despite the miasma of discontent with the effort, the United States and its many allies are not losing in Afghanistan. The spate of “green on blue” killings of U.S. soldiers by members of the Afghan security forces – some Taliban infiltrators, but mostly disgruntled or frustrated Afghans after a decade of foreign occupation – is a serious threat to our partnership strategy. After a temporary stand-down, to allow reactions to cartoons and videos caricaturing the prophet Muhammad to pass, joint patrols have resumed. We are proceeding with our plan to hand over primary responsibility for security to the Afghans by the end of 2014…