Victoria Brownworth

Think Progress notes this: A new poll indicates 68 percent of Americans believe the U.S. will not win or lose the Afghanistan war, which will go on without resolution. Yesterday, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said that leaving Afghanistan is “not something that has ever been entertained.”

what was the famous line from Cool Hand Luke? “i think what we have here is a failure to communicate.”

here’s what it took to end vietnam: americans being war-weary. they’re war weary again. one more fake election in afghanistan is not going to make a difference. it’s not going to create a win. (in case no one has noticed, wars don’t get won these days.)

obama can praise karzai for being willing to go into a run-off election after karzai and his people rigged the last one till the yaks come home, but it won’t change anything. it won’t alter the corruption, it won’t stop the narcostate, it won’t let us win.

glenn greenwald over at salon.com writes today about david rohde’s post-traumatic insights into the taliban. the upshot is that they (muslims in general, the taliban and al-qeada in specific) hate us because we’ve been bombing them in afghanistan and iraq and we side with israel which oppresses the palestinians.

all true, of course. but equally true is that the taliban was oppressing and killing women and girls in afghanistan long before the u.s. invaded. long before 9/11.

we’re not fixing anything in afghanistan. we’ve broken a lot more. some would argue that much has changed since 9/11 in afghanistan. others would say nothing has changed. what remains the same is this: history. no one has ever ”won” in afghanistan. it’s the height of hubris to think we’ll be the first. how many more lives are we willing to barter for arrogance?— vab