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Because winter is coming. That's really the reason; it has nothing to do with a lack of willingness to commit ground forces. Unlike magazine editors, generals have to contend with the real world, and in the real world it snows. It's convenient for armchair generals to create military units out of nothing, to advance across mountains as if they were flat plains (after all, they look flat on the map), to create supplies where there are none, and to generally fight a fictitious war. Anyone can win a fictitious war, but it's a bit harder to win in the real world, where real troops eat real food and consume real gasoline and really get cold and tired and dispirited and lonely and afraid. Real troops have to sleep, for instance. Everyone would love to attack 24 hours per day forever, but it simply isn't possible. Having found refuge in places that America will not, or cannot, bomb, it appears the Taliban will rule Afghanistan through the winter, thereby handing the United States a humiliating and gratuitous defeat. How exactly is it a defeat that we have not won the war yet? It's a defeat when we lose the war, which hasn't happened. This is an example of "setting the bar" -- it's something you see during Presidential primaries. Going into some particular primary, the press will set the bar for what percentage some particular candidate is expected to win, and if he wins more then it's a "victory", while if he wins less it's a "defeat" -- at least to hear the press tell it. It's all about beating the point spread. That has lead to ludicrous reports where some candidate "only" won 70% of the vote; his leading opponent "stunned" him by taking 20% instead of the expected 16%. Still, somehow it seems to be that guy who keeps winning 70% who wins the nomination, even though he seems to "lose" all the primaries by "only" taking 70%. And now you're going to see the same thing happening here: the press have not merely decided that the US needs to win this war (which is fine -- I think so, too) but that they need to do so in a particular way, though what way that might be depends on who is doing the coverage. In some cases it has to be "fast". In other cases it has to be "with a minimum number of civilian casualties". In other cases there are other concerns. And each time this comes up, whoever it is who is doing the reporting will use that phony criterion to try to claim that things are going badly and that we're losing this war. Relax, people. It's going to be a long time. There's much to be done, and despite what you think there really is no hurry. Our military will finish this in a reasonable amount of time, but the goal is to win this in as efficient a manner as possible. That means that we don't eagerly seek out opportunities for friendly casualties; that isn't courage, it's just a waste of good men. Equally, it doesn't mean that we shy away from combat or retreat as soon as the first soldier stubs his toe. We're going to lose some people, probably a lot of people. But the goal is to win this in a reasonable time period consistent with low losses on our side, while doing so in a very convincing manner which will give our government a credible threat in diplomacy with the next nation we decide needs to seriously stop supporting terrorist organizations within its border. As to the commitment of ground forces, I think that will happen. But it's not going to happen just to prove that we can do it, it will happen because it is militarily necessary. For the moment it isn't; moving them in there just as winter sets in would serve no purpose, unless for instance it is to protect and start to operate the airfield at Mazar-e Sharif, which just fell. (discuss) |
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