I really don’t think there is an Afghan “quagmire”
All the Vietnam metaphors are part of a discursive community that taught and raised Obama to believe that America is always wrong.
As in Vietnam, we have not lost any military engagements with the Taliban or Al Qaeda sympathizers. Anti War zealots of all stripes simply define the pragmatics of Afghan politics as failure because we don’t see disneyland in Kabul.
Every year, we are treated to the ‘in the spring, the Taliban will rise up . . .”
If we want to crush them, we will. It is purely an internal conversation with our own public sphere. If we choose to leave, then the Taliban can return to power. Its pretty simple.
The Anti War lefties now have larger megaphones in that conversation within the administration. They never want America to win in an international setting.
Let me remind you of the Meriam Webster dictionary defination of quagmire (a word which dates from sixteenth century NOT Vietnam)
2 : a difficult, precarious, or entrapping position : predicament
Please tell me specifically which one of these words does NOT apply to the Afghan War. This war has been going on for eight years (far longer than anyone anticipated) and everyone concedes that the Taliban is getting stronger. Finally, the point about winning or losing conventional military "engagements" in a protracted guerilla war is largely meaningless. Washington lost nearly of all of his "engagements" too but he kept his troops in the field, continued to nibble at the enemy until they finally decided it wasn't worth any more blood and treasure and withdrew. The British were better for it too.