"Beware of those who advocate war for the sake of war and not "winning". Usually they are suggesting other people's children and grandchildren not only should fight that war but pay for it."

Possibly, but are the soldiers involved in favor or not.

The war in Afghanistan is a police action, largely involving US forces, but also a considerable amount of other countries are involved.
It is obviously different than compared to normal civilian policing- it's more dangerous than average US civilian policing. But police in American cities are dying fighting crime.
Some stats:
"On average, more than 65,000 law enforcement officers are assaulted each year and some 23,000 are injured annually.
The deadliest year in law enforcement history was 1974 when 268 officers were killed. The deadliest decade was the 1970's when a total of 2,182 officers died, or 218 each year. That figure has dropped dramatically in the 1990's to 152 per year."

Obviously the civilian police are policing a larger population, and there are more police officers in America than in Afghanistan. But there probably there are dangerous regions and time periods in America where death or injury of police officer approach what is going on in Afghanistan.

If less Americans used drugs or we ended this drug war somehow, less police would get killed. Only a small percentage of American take illegal drugs, and large numbers take legal drugs [e.g. alcohol], if the majority of American were less tolerate and less enabling towards drug use this could have a significant affect on reducing the numbers of police being killed or injured each year.

Now, as far as America and it's responsibility in regard to global security- I think America should do less and other countries do more. And I think countries which nearest and most involved in the regions should do slightly more than compared to the other countries.
But America is wealthier and has more military capability.

Now, Afghanistan is a real basket case since the Soviets invaded the place. And it's going to take a long time to get even modest improvements.
I think no can argue that Afghanistan hasn't had any improvement since our involvement.