Afghanistan success is in eye of beholder

[bemildred]

Or perhaps we could stop pretending dismal failure, waste, and destruction is somehow or other "success".

As NATO insists that violence is declining while many Afghans say daily life has grown more perilous, tension has grown over so-called metrics that can be used to chart progress or deterioration.

Reporting from Forward Operating Base Ghazni,—
The young U.S. Army sergeant had lost nearly all the blood in his body by the time he was rushed into a military field clinic at this dusty base in eastern Afghanistan.

As his distraught unit mates converged on the surgical suite, some of them weeping, the entire camp pitched in for an emergency blood drive. But military doctors' frantic efforts were futile, and Sgt. John A. Lyons, a 26-year-old from New Jersey who had studied Latin in college, died of the wounds he had suffered in a Taliban ambush.

As the U.S.-led war against the Taliban grinds into its second decade, the life-and-death struggle taking place daily across Afghanistan has gotten entangled in increasingly divergent narratives of the Western war effort. In this high-stakes phase of a waning conflict, perceptions of success have become crucial, perhaps more so than reality.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-afghanistan-war-success-20111113,0,1728089.story

[Scuba]

1. If we could get the rest of our troops home before another is maimed or killed...

... I'd call it the best we can do.

[plumbob]

2. This sort of bs is why about half of my high school history students believe

that the US won in Vietnam.

We began that unit with an observation of mine: Anytime you have to fly off the roof of your own embassy in helicopters, you did not win.


Not hard to find same sort of "metrics" in this highly profitable (for the right people) clusterfuck.