I really cannot see where any of the words is descriptive.
Words like quagmire are used to convince the superior American power to withdraw. There is a set of Anti Americans who use our word systems against us. The Taliban and the Anti American warriors are the same rhetorical camp.
The “trick” is always to convince us internally that we have lost and to leave. That is what happened in Vietnam.
I frankly do not think it would be horrible if we left but I would never think we lost. The Taliban are weak ignorant bigoted communities. They don’t deserve sovereignty over other human beings.
I also know that across the world, we will inevitably be back. These thugs cannot content themselves with the small fiefdoms being continually raided by the obscenity of cell phones, TV, and the internet. They have to strike back against the Great Satans. When they do, we will muster the will to crush them again.
They are losing. I don’t care how much the anti warriors romanticize them. They are losing and deserve to lose.
I don’t think of the Taliban as being like George Washington.
Any way forward is fine with me but I will never pretend that either Bush or even Obama “lost” Afghanistan or lead us into a quagmire. Even we sit back and just lob in cruise missiles, that might be fine.
The Taliban’s ideas of human culture are despicable and shameful that is the real point. To the extent that we stay and fight we provide a human vacation— particularly for women— from revolting sovereigns.
If that is your foreign policy goal why stop with the Taliban (who never attacked us)? Why not launch wars of liberation throughout Africa or, for that matter, against U.S. allied Islamo-fascist dictatorships such as Egypt and Uzbeckistan?