Balance Sheet of the Forever War | Patrick J. Buchanan - Official Website

I saw nothing of a 'balance sheet' merely a summation according to Mr Buchanan's view of the world. Had all the gravitas of a USA Today info graphic. GEN (AMB) Eikenberry's comment is spot on but stops short. There needs to be a come to Jesus moment with the Afghan government. We've played nice for 17 years. We smile and ignore it when you screw us in the international press. We fought with one hand tied behind our backs. We ratcheted back (highly effective) night raids to assuage Afghan angst. We tried tactical patience and restraint. We keep giving them stuff that they promptly lose, sell, trash, or neglect until it disintegrates. We train Kandak after Kandak that then melt away except at payroll time. Enough. Figure out your internal crap, man up, and exercise sovereignty, Afghanistan. It will not be Jeffersonian, would settle for middling effective. Do we need a western friendly strongman? Maybe. Own your self inflicted crap and move on.

I once believed that we could not kill/capture our way out of Afghanistan. I think we can, more to the point, Ithink Afghans can identify and eliminate the bad guys. They need to hammer the bad guys while we are helping them, or when we leave, the bad guys will come for them. google the fate of President Najibullah. Didn't go well. We as a full partner need to step back and let them Bust skulls and not wring hands over the damage. Settle scores, who cares. Their crap, not ours. All part of the Afghan government reaching deep and taking responsibility and ACTION to perpetuate themselves. The Afghan leadership that shirk their responsibilities and attempt to flee need to have their assets frozen and forcibly returned to Afghanistan. They stay until its fixed. Come back with your shield or upon it....maybe the Afghan version is come back with your corrupt fortune or we'll divide it up over your dead body until we find someone who can take control.

If we are not willing to do this, then We need to cut neo-feudal deals with local power brokers so Afghanistan doesn't revert back to God's little blind spot and be prepared to go back every 5-10 years and clean it out. Either way we may have to go cross border and clean out Pakistan sanctuary like we did in Cambodia and Laos. Eliminating safe haven and denying them rest is essential to breaking the Taliban and their Traveling fellows collective backs. If the bad guys can't winter over in a nice safe village withe shelter, security, and ANCOC and BNCOC, they'll break or fight. Either way as you please.

It could have been won, and still can be. Of course defeating the warped ideology is harder. However, all they have to is let the military fight the war. No politics or political correctness. I am not saying without rules, all I am saying is without interference. There were politics in WWI and II but the military was still allowed to fight. Ever since the Korean War, technically the end WWII, when we allowed the Soviets to seize half of Europe right after we stopped the NAZI's from doing that... but that is a debate for another time. But since the end off WWII all out victory is no longer the end goal. Until we return to fighting a war the way they should be we will be stuck. If we pull out now they will come back even stronger, we continue to do what we are doing and we get numb to the idea...