As bravely as our troops are fighting in Afghanistan, the casualties keep mounting, and the latest Pentagon report to Congress indicates that progress in that war-torn country has been "uneven" at best. If that weren't discouraging enough, especially for American military families who've already been through multiple deployments and seen so many deaths and injuries to loved ones in this, the longest war in American history (10 years and counting), now comes word from Gen. David Patraeus, our top military man in Afghanistan, that the fighting there could go on, well, indefinitely.
In an exclusive interview this week conducted by ABC News' George Stephanopoulos that ran on his George's Bottom Line blog, Patraeus admitted that a U.S. victory in Afghanistan is not a "sure thing" by 2014. Patraeus said:
While Defense Secretary Robert Gates paints a more optimistic picture about progress in Afghanistan, saying in the Washington Post that progress there has exceeded his expectations and that 'over the last 12 months we've come a long way," a new ABC News/Washington Post poll said fewer Afghans support a U.S. presence in the country and fewer believe that the United States makes their country any safer. Said Patraeus of that lack of support:
Of this latest Patraeus interview, Huffington Post's Dan Froomkin writes:
A year ago this month, President Obama promised to begin bringing U.S. troops home from Afghanistan in July 2011. But, notes Froomkin:
