Anne Applebaum is back from Afghanistan, and she has a tale to tell. According to Anne, the job is tough but doable. “Though Americans like to talk about “winning” and “losing” the war in Afghanistan, on the ground it’s clear that those categories aren’t relevant. Of course we can “win”: The real question is whether we are willing to pay the high cost of victory.”
I frankly don’t know what Anne means when she says the “categories” of winning and losing aren’t “relevant” and I don’t think she does either. But her point is obvious—victory is just a matter of will. But are we up to the challenge? Well, “the nearly 5,000 new troops promised last week by President Bush represent the beginning of a recognition of the scale of the challenge, but only that.”
So we’ve in Afghanistan for seven years and it’s only now that President Bush has shown “the beginning of a recognition of the scale of the challenge”? Sounds like we’ve been neglecting Afghanistan. Well, no. Wise guys like Barack Obama say that, but that’s not right. It’s just that, well, “we haven’t yet faced up to what we have undertaken to do here. Afghanistan is bigger than Iraq, more rugged, more impoverished and vastly more complicated, with more languages, more ethnic groups, more tribes and more-lethal neighbors. It has only begun to test our stamina.”
So after seven years in Afghanistan we’re just getting started? And Afghanistan is going to be “vastly more complicated” than Iraq, where we’ve spent over 4,000 lives and accumulated more than $2 trillion in debt, with no light at the end of the tunnel? Hey, sounds like we’re going to have lots of fun! But don’t blame George! He was only the President!
