On Sunday the
Taliban issued this statement:
"With
the help of Allah, the valiant Afghans under the Jihadi leadership of Islamic
Emirate defeated the military might and numerous strategies of America and NATO
alliance,"
After 12
years and 3,199 NATO soldier deaths it is difficult to construct any argument
that defines this as anything other than a defeat.
Tom, you might be right. But I just cannot call it that, at least not yet, not while we're still over there.
ReplyDeleteMy brother is soldier. He served three tours in Iraq: 2003, 2005, and 2008. He was in Afghanistan in 2009. His deployments were very active. Those were hard years.
During 2005, he was a company commander in Tikrit. By the 10th or 11th month of a year-long deployment, he and his men realized that his company was the only one in the battalion that hadn't lost a man. He said they were really feeling it because they knew it was mostly dumb luck. So on every patrol that left the FOB, there was a sort-of grave, hushed silence. Nobody wanted to lose anyone at that point, when they were so close to making it back home.
This is what your people on the ground have to deal with whenever there is a date certain for coming home. It's one of the problems with making timelines: not only what your enemy knows (and if you can't call them that, then you have no business engaging in combat and it's time to get the hell out), but what you know. Nobody wants to be the last one to die in a war no one wants, no one cares about, and no Presidential candidate will talk about.
It is heartbreaking.