Today is the 10th anniversary of the onset of the Afghanistan War. Patrick Porter assess its legacy:
The invasion made life more dangerous and insecure for Al Qaeda and its affiliates, yet it also made the world more inhospitable to American power. It inflicted a level of attrition on Al Qaeda’s pool of talent and diverted its efforts towards trying to survive, constraining its ability to prepare complex, mass-casualty attacks on America and its allies. However, the damage inflicted by our military presence and the continuous offensive also had radicalising side-effects, creating ‘accidental’ guerrillas resisting international forces because they are there, and powering the claim of militant Islamists that the West is conducting a crusade against Islam.
Fallows recommends a new report he co-authored arguing for a reassesment of our defense commitments:
Too much money can be as destructive as too little; big budgets can inhibit rather than encourage introspection and original thought. Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta has, unfortunately, already indicated that his prefers to protect existing programs rather than to entertain unorthodox ideas. Congressional leaders, regardless of party, share this disposition. Therefore, useful answers to the question "how's it going" will have to come from the outside.
Toward this end, President Obama, as commander-in-chief, should create an independent, nonpartisan investigatory commission to evaluate the military experience of the past decade — in all its aspects. Call it the Commission to Assess the Long Wars.
The Dish 