An Optimistic Assessment On Afghanistan

AIR ASSAULT MISSION
As seen through a night-vision device, U.S. Army paratroopers and Afghan soldiers travel aboard a CH-47 Chinook helicopter during an air assault mission in Afghanistan's Ghazni province, May 4, 2012. U.S. Army photo by Sgt. Michael J. MacLeod

H.R. McMaster: The Warrior's-Eye View of Afghanistan -- Wall Street Journal

The two-star general wrote the book on Vietnam and showed the way for the surge in Iraq. Now he's back from 20 months in Afghanistan—and says the war can be won.

'The distant rear of an army engaged in battle is not the best place from which to judge correctly what is going on in front."

The words are from Ulysses S. Grant's recollections of the Battle of Shiloh. But they are being quoted to me by H.R. McMaster, arguably the Pentagon's foremost warrior-scholar, to stress that the increasingly common American perception that the Afghan War is lost doesn't jibe with what he witnessed during his recent 20-month deployment to Afghanistan.

"The difficulties are apparent," says the two-star Army general, "but oftentimes the opportunities are masked."

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My Comment: He may be right, but the American people have lost the will to fight in Afghanistan (including myself), and without this public support, General H.R. McMaster's optimistic assessment will be ignored.