Over the last week or so, the WaPo has been publishing articles about official documents it has called the “Afghanistan Papers.” Both the title and the contents suggest an obvious resemblance to Vietnam and the Pentagon Papers. The lies disclosed in the Pentagon Papers were a huge legal and political issue; the Afghanistan Papers, on the other hand, have caused little more than a collective shrug to date. Why the difference?
For several reasons:
1. No one with any sense really believed we were winning in Afghanistan, anyway. The public learned its lesson from Vietnam.
2. Afghanistan is not really a partisan issue, as presidents of both parties were responsible for the war.
3. All of the soldiers in Afghanistan were volunteers. Things might be different if we had a draft.
4. Casualties have been much more limited than they were in Vietnam.
5. The war, at least initially, was justified by 9/11. It is the continuing presence there that is much more debatable.
The real battle here is between the military and diplomatic blob on the one hand and politicians from both parties who have long doubted the value of the war. Trump may be able to use these leaks as a basis for cutting and running, but he won’t want the blame when the Taliban march into Kabul. That’s the ultimate deterrent to withdrawal, and it is still in effect.