Vietnam redux

Or, Afghanistan since the beginning of time. Honestly, can we say that anyone was fooling anybody about this? It was apparent almost right from the moment we took Kabul.

“We don’t invade poor countriesto make them rich. We don’t invade authoritarian countries to make them democratic. We invade violent countries to make them peaceful and we clearly failed in Afghanistan.”

[from The Washington Post]

Confidential documents reveal U.S. officials failed to tell the truth about the war in Afghanistan

For nearly two decades of war in Afghanistan, U.S. leaders have sounded a constant refrain: We are making progress. They were not, documents show, and they knew it.