Afghan Hawks Pursuing A 'Fantasy'

Time reports:

The article by Michael O'Hanlon last week (i.e. Success worth paying for in Afghanistan) and the one in today's WSJ by Kagan and Kagan (i.e., We Have The Momentum in Afghanistan) made me sick to my stomach -- especially the latter.  Have you seen it yet?  It is the most breathless piece of yellow journalism I've seen in the entire OIF-OEF generation.

According to the Kagans, "If Mr. Obama announces the withdrawal of all surge forces from Afghanistan in 2012, the war will likely be lost. Al Qaeda, Lashkar-e-Taiba, and other global terrorist groups will almost certainly re-establish sanctuaries in Afghanistan. The Afghan state would likely collapse and the country would descend into ethnic civil war. The outcome of this withdrawal policy would be far worse than Nixon's decision to accept defeat in Vietnam, for it would directly increase the threat to the American homeland."

Apparently they forgot, "there's a commie behind every bush," "the Russians are coming!" and "if Vietnam falls, all of Asia falls to the Communists!"  That logic was absurd in the 1960/70s, and its even more laughable today -- or it would be laughable if it didn't cost so damn many American lives to prop up the fantasy.