Recently on Uncommon Knowledge Fouad Ajami expressed grave reservations about the war in Afghanistan. “It just doesn’t end well,” Ajami said. Today on Uncommon Knowledge, Sebastian Junger, author of War, responds:
He’s completely wrong. The western world figured out how to drive the German army out of Europe. They did D-Day, they swept through France, they pushed the Germans back into Germany. If they can do that – there’s something like 10,000 or 20,000 Taliban fighters essentially barefoot in the mountains with AKs – they can probably figure out how to win this fight. The problem in Afghanistan isn’t a military one, it’s a political problem in the countries of Europe and the United States. If they really want to win, like they did in World War II, they can probably figure it out.