The Great Disconnect

One of the great disconnects during the Vietnam War was between those who looked at the results of individual battles and extrapolated from that to say "we're winning the war" and those looked at the political situation in Vietnam and said "we're probably going to lose."

The same thing is happening in Afghanistan. While supposedly every fight between the Taliban and American forces ends with the Taliban being defeated[1], the political situation is not at all promising. President Hamid Karzai remains little more than the mayor of Kabul, as his government has little control outside of the capital city. The Taliban is expanding its areas of influence.

Yet we're winning. According to our military.

[1] The military has demonstrated that it has earned all the trustworthiness accorded to MACV and the Five O'Clock Follies. (Look it up.)