Our failure in Afghanistan is the result of our failure in Iraq. This was predictable in 2002, before we stuck our foot in it.

2002? You might be able to successfully make that point if you could locate, from any time in late 2001 or early 2002, any statement from a liberal or Democratic leader declaring that what we really needed to do to succeed in Afhanistan was to put in more American ground troops and armor on the ground there. Who knows? Maybe somebody did.

But as I remember it, stories like these were more typical. A straight replay of the Vietnam War. Evil and incompetent Americans, fleeing and dying civilians, bombed hospitals, the whole bit. The only thing missing was a photo of a burned girl running down the road. If there were calls for more Marines on the ground from the liberals, I must have missed them.

The original strategy--right or wrong--was to use Afghan forces as much as possible. This would accomplish a number of things: It would help avoid worldwide Muslim hostility about a "takeover" of Afghanistan, it would reduce U.S. casualties (the first U.S. hostile fire death wasn't until the end of November--a CIA interrogator who died in a prison riot), and it would take advantage of Afghan forces already on site that didn't have to be moved forward in multiple steps from other places.

The latter issue is often overlooked--the large-scale ground invasion of Iraq took place after months of public buildup. You cannot do a surprise attack, or even a quick attack, with a hundred thousand troops. There is no such thing as a "mass Special Forces attack." The first significant installation of ground troops was on November 25th of 2001: A thousand Marines that had to be painstakingly hauled in by helicopters to a base south of Kandahar. Unlike Iraq, there was no "highway" into the country from a cooperative border nation. The battle of Tora Bora was only about two weeks later.

If this policy was a flawed attempt to try and create a politically-correct war, ask yourself why this was thought to be necessary. Why a minimal "special operations" war would go over better in America than a "D-Day" operation.

It's amazing how people can go back in time and "rewrite" their views. Suddenly something nobody said becomes something everybody knew. You can never be wrong about anything if you can correct history with hindsight.