Stardate 20020830.1138

(On Screen): The Vice President of Iraq says that Iraq "is no Afghanistan". That's an interesting turn of phrase, don't you think?

A year ago, in late September, what we heard was just how tough any war in Afghanistan was going to be. The Soviet experience there was endlessly cited; the tenacity and courage of Afghan fighters was lauded, the horrible terrain and inaccessibility of the nation were described in loving detail. And of course, there was the feared "Afghan Winter", which would make operations impossible. Afghanistan was no Iraq, we were told; a war there would be much more difficult than Operation Desert Storm. There would be no easy and fast and overwhelming victory; it would be a quagmire in which we would be bogged down for years, and ultimately like the Soviets we would give up and go home, defeated by the dogged persistence of the superhuman Afghan fighters with their AK-47's.

Didn't turn out that way, did it?

As a result of the Soviet experience, Afghanistan had become iconic for a place where Westerners would be humbled.

Now it's iconic for a place where a handful of well trained men, improvising as they went, and backed up by massive air power, could fight and win a war in very short order with virtually no casualties. It's changed from meaning "impossible" to meaning "easy".