Being realistic in the GWOT seems to have escaped some. What were our intentions in Afghanistan? To punish the Taliban for harboring OBL and AQ. At least that is what it seems I was told so it looks like we've just about finished it. All we need to do is make sure that our next enemy is firmly entrenched there rather than our past enemy.
The point (hopefully?) was more than punitive; it was to prevent Afghanistan from being a terrorist haven. (On a more dubious note, that was our excuse for Iraq along with WMDs)
Maybe the real problem, initially at least, was that at a strategic level this was all about punishment. Maybe no one thought about "wow, what happens after we kill all the booger eaters?" I can tell you that it isn't all sunshine and lollypops, the good guys wearing white hats don't appear after the bad guys are gone and open up a Starbucks and everyone starts loving America (I imagine that some people were this naive).
I think we are seeing the results of that now and realizing that unless we either seriously rebuild Afghanistan/Iraq we are going to have 2 breeding grounds for people that hate America and have nothing better to do than become terrorists.
To our friends in Afghanistan, sorry about the drop in your readiness. It appears from your post that your seeing real and tragic results of the reluctance of Congress to give you what you need.
This has nothing to do with $$ or Congress. This is much more to do with a poorly implemented strategic plan that is really going nowhere, this country should be progressively getting safer and more prosperous, it isn't.
When did have the last surrender of a Japanese soldier...wasn't it like in the mid seventies or something?
How long did we "occupy" Germany after WWII? I know I left in '91.
Blatant hyperbole. If you want to draw more realistic parallels try Vietnam (closer but still not the same as our current situation). Germany and Japan were not guerrilla wars nor was there any real resistance once we occupied (one confused Japanese soldier running around in the Philippines does not compare to a country full of militias and terror groups vying for power).
I don't have an answer to any of the problems in Iraq/Afghanistan and I am not convinced that there is an effective overall strategic plan or goal. I do know that people are going home in boxes for reasons that are unclear. We are fighting a war against vague boogey men for some fuzzy idea that keeps changing (what is the reason du jour: WMDs? Freedom for Iraqis? American security? OBL? Al Queada? Axis of Evil?)
You can vilify the Democrats for capitalizing on an anti-war sentiment, but they are reflecting people that are starting to ask tough questions like "Why did little Johnny come home in a box?" and seriously I don't think there is a good answer to that at this point, especially in regards to Iraq.
Some folks dont understand that wars are harder to win than hollywood would have you believe.
While the body count might not be significant to you, I promise you that it is very significant to some people. Sure past wars have massive body counts but don't use that to trivialize the deaths of the current wars.