CNN) -- "Australia's new defense minister warned U.S. and NATO allies over the weekend that they risk losing the war in Afghanistan without a sharp shift in military and reconstruction efforts there, according to his office."

"While the U.S.-led coalition has been "stomping on lots of ants, we have not been dealing with the ants' nest," Fitzgibbon said."

"We are winning the battles and not the war, in my view," Fitzgibbon told the newspaper. "We have been very successful in clearing areas of the Taliban, but it's having no real strategic effect."

Now this guy seems to see it much differently than does yours. He sees it as identical to Iraq, where the political situation remains as polarized as before, and it's recognized that the solution is political, not military.

The person who views tactical victories as evidence of winning the larger war has not learned from Vietnam, among others, that military power is not the determinant in some wars. The tactical victories are important, necessary, but not sufficient.

Arf