Remember when the press lovingly used the “Q” word (quagmire) when describing President Bush’s forays into Afghanistan and Iraq? Well, when he checked out of office in January, we were winning both of those wars. Now, Obama has his plan: 30,000 troops (which is 10,000 less than the low end of General McChrystal’s requested 40-80,000 troops). This is precisely the number of troops needed to pull us into a dreaded quagmire like Vietnam, yet the press is reluctant to use that word when talking about their Golden Boy, Obama. That number of troops is not enough to decisively win, yet he’s now committed us for another 18 months of needless deaths. President Obama is fighting to lose, and that loss will come at the cost of American lives. We feel a charge of “dereliction of duty” is too light… perhaps “treason” would be better suited.

Setting a timeline for withdrawal is admitting to your enemy that you are quitting and giving up. If a sports team was told “the other team is going to play for 60 minutes”, they know that all they have to do is tie the game and go into overtime… while their opponent is heading for the locker room, they can simply score once and win the game.

Many armchair generals who don’t know their Rommel from their Sun Tsu have said, “No one has ever won in Afghanistan, and no one can ever win a war against insurgents.” This is wrong, wrong, wrong. Other countries have lost in Afghanistan because they took the “colonization” approach where you subjugate the population. The way to win is to take the “helpful roommate” approach: Move in indefinitely, offer to help out however you can, and make them your friends so that they don’t want you to move out. The population of Afghanistan simply wants whoever is in charge to make their lives better with the least amount of repercussions. If we announce we’re leaving in a year and a half, they have no motivation to hitch their wagons to our horse.

So where does this leave us? A war that was almost won will turn into another Vietnam, but rather than rice-farming communists moving in when we leave, it will be the anti-American terrorist-training Taliban. Thanks for nothing, Obama. Afghanistan is lost, and many more needless American lives will be as well.