Replies

How do you sap the will of a determined foe? That is the question here. The Afghans could never defeat the Soviets militarily, but they could bleed and outlast them, and they did. The Soviets certainly did not treat the rebels there with kid gloves, but they could not break the will of their enemies. And, if a closed society can buckle under the weight of mounting losses, can an open society such as ours do the same? The Soviets were driven out not by the military might of the Afghans but because the Soviet public turned against the war, and if the weight of public opinion can stop a Communist dictatoriship, can we stand more firm if the Iraqi rebels have the steel to persist no matter what? Heck, look at the debate one year into the war in this country and the divide in our populace. If the Iraqi rebels have the will to carry this through, do you all think we have the stomach to still be fighting ten years from now in Iraq? It is a question of will, ours versus theirs and how to break their will completely. We did it against the Gemans and Japanese, but are they comparable to an Islamic militant? What breaks their will to fight and die?

You seem to have forgotten the economic cost of the Afghan war to the Soviets... Their economy was crumbling under its own weight and then they put a war on top of it. The Afghans were also given US hardware to make it even more expensive. Also the Russians are not as careful with their soldiers as we are with ours and took a lot more dead than we have.

Russia's experience in Afghanistan is more comparable to our experience in Vietnam. Vietnam had an order of magnitude more cost in lives than Iraq, and no progress was visible to the American people. We have the economic might to pursue a war anywhere we need and our casualties are incredibly light by any one else's standard. The average person needs to be convinced that we are making progress and we are making the world better and we must do that because the cost of pulling back is far, far greater than the cost to stay the course. Our open society can be weaker if we lose the propaganda war(and this is what binLaden is counting on), but can also be far stronger if convinced the cause is worth the cost.