THUNDERBOLT CHECK - U.S. Air Force Senior Airman Judith Bulkley exits an A-10C Thunderbolt II after performing an external operations check on the aircraft at Kandahar Airfield, Afghanistan, Aug. 8, 2011. Bulkley, an electrical and environmental systems specialist assigned to the 23rd Aircraft Maintenance Squadron, was working to isolate an ongoing issue in the aircraft. U.S. Air Force photo by Staff Sgt. Stephen SchesterLessons Of Two Wars: We Will Lose In Iraq And Afghanistan -- Stephen M. Walt, Foreign Policy
One of the things that gets in the way of conducting good national security policy is a reluctance to call things by their right names and state plainly what is really happening. If you keep describing difficult situations in misleading or inaccurate ways, plenty of people will draw the wrong conclusions about them and will continue to support policies that don't make a lot of sense.
Two cases in point: the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. We are constantly told that that "the surge worked" in Iraq, and President Obama has to pretend the situation there is tolerable so that he can finally bring the rest of the troops there home. Yet it is increasingly clear that the surge failed to produce meaningful political reconciliation and did not even end the insurgency, and keeping U.S. troops there for the past three years may have accomplished relatively little.
Read more ....
My Comment: Could not have said it any better. This is my must read commentary for today.