Unhappy 9th Anniversary for Afghan War

When the Afghan war launched nine years ago today, 88% of the public supported it. Now, nearly two-thirds of the public oppose it, according to Mother Jones. Why? Here’s what pundits are saying as the war enters its 10th year:

• The war “started as a violent, feel-good strike back for the 9/11 terrorist attacks,” writes David Wood of Politics Daily, but it “has ballooned into a nasty and dirty conflict whose purpose is unclear and end point unknown.” There’s widespread skepticism in Washington that anything will be settled by Obama’s transition deadline.

• The Guardian calls the war a “monumental folly,” arguing that corruption has totally undermined the illusion, clung to by NATO forces, that they’re propping up a viable Afghan government. Worse, the war is spilling into Pakistan, where it threatens the civilian government, and has “become both a magnet for, and training ground of, no less than two generations of jihadis.”
• Don’t expect too much from the recently announced peace talks, either. “The road to reconciliation is as steep and rugged as the mountains where Taliban hide,” writes the Christian Science Monitor. The Taliban are a fractious group, and a mile apart from the US and Afghan conditions for a truce.

(More Afghanistan war stories.)