Thoughts on Afghanistan

The more I read Bob Woodward’s book, Obama’s Wars, the more and more it concerns me.

I get the image of a ship that has a car sized hole in its hull and a fist sized
patch is being used to try and stem the flow. A patch that is not only undersized but one that has also been grossly neglected for 8 years. As a result the ship is near, or past, the point of sinking regardless of how much you try and stop it.
This raises the question: What do you do about it? Do you keep trying to plug that massive leak as new, smaller ones, from around it? Do you try and get as many hands on deck as you can and try to bail as much water out as is coming in? Do you cut your losses and abandon ship? Or do you simply, regardless of the costs, go down with the ship?

I also wonder what role Afghanistan is playing, or will play, in the course of the broader war on extremists/terrorist groups. Does anyone truly think that if we manage to win in Afghanistan, or kill/capture Bin Laden, that all of these terrorist and extremist groups will simply give up and go away? If not, then doesn’t that make Afghanistan more of a battle, or one of many fronts, in this larger war? With Yemen, Pakistan, Somali, etc. being the other battles/fronts. If that is the case, then is winning one battle worth jeopardizing the chances you have of winning the war?

I understand how badly it would look to pull out of Afghanistan, but at the same time how does it look now? Our massive and powerful military machine has been effectively stalled by a much smaller force. Isn’t that image just as powerful, just as potentially damaging for us? Especially when you add in the corrupt Afghan, and lukewarm/contradictory, Pakistani governments who are slowing (and in some cases opposing) everything we are attempting to do.

No one likes to lose, but in the course of life and world events it is bound to happen to everyone. Afghanistan was ignored for far too long, and even with Obama’s determination to turn it around, it may already be too late. Wars and battles aren’t always won during the waning days, many are given their fate in the opening days of conflict.

I honestly don’t have the answers, all I know is that something has got to give, one way or the other. This thinking is far from popular but simply ignoring, or attacking, it doesn’t diminish the importance of it. Every great leader in history has proven that they understand this fact. Washington, Roosevelt, Eisenhower, etc. all had to think about what to do if the battle or war could not be won. Only fools obsess over one outcome or the other. How we handle defeat often tells as much about us as how we handle a victory.