[snakeoil]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics ... documents/

This should just be the start of the inquiry into our venture into Afghanistan.

[johnforbes]

The Post was always a pro-Democrat paper, and that was true when Phil Graham was in. Today the paper, owned by Bezos as a billionaire's ideological toy, has gone even more to the Left.

As to Afghanistan, it was certainly a war which could have been won -- just as Vietnam could have been -- if the American people and U.S. politicians and political generals had wanted to win it.

But, from the start, they wanted to outsource the war in Afghanistan to the Northern Alliance, send few American troops in, and this guaranteed that the war could not be "won" in the old sense that civilians think of victory.

Could it, like Korean or Vietnam, have been won in the conventional sense had a WW II general been in charge? Sure.

[Clownkicker]

johnny, the only way to win those wars would have been to kill everyone who lived there.

It may come as a surprise to you, but the U.S. hasn't had that policy since the Indian wars in the 1800s.

[johnforbes]

Not true.

U.S. policy in WW II was total victory and unconditional surrender.

Limited war, as we used to say in the Army, limits your chance to win, and as proof one need look no further than Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, etc.