Reply #42: You are correct, there shouldn't be a war, because war has not been declared.

[individual rights]

As I pointed out before, the Constitution calls for the Congress to debate the grievances that justify war and state the objectives that must be achieved to restore peace. Since the legal procedures were not followed, the objectives are not specific, as evidenced by General Petraeus’ words below.

I define winning as the unconditional surrender of the enemy and the subsequent resolution of all grievances which were the basis for declaring war.


Thinking historically, the war in Afghanistan is stalemated somewhat like Vietnam was after the Tet Offensive. We can stay there for a long time. Certainly the Taliban, our chief enemy there, doesn't have the capacity to throw us out. We can accomplish President Obama's political objectives to disrupt, disable, dismantle al-Qaeda in Afghanistan. But for us to accomplish our military's operational objectives--which is nation-building, euphemistically called counterinsurgency--that's not going to take eighteen months. And I don't think it's going to take only three to four years. It will be a generational effort. History shows the kind of commitment that's required to accomplish that kind of objective. The problem in terms of strategy is that we have a mismatch. The president's political objectives are actually quite limited, but his military has offered up really a maximalist operational method of nation-building to achieve those very limited political objectives. That's the stalemated nature of the situation in Afghanistan.~ General Petraeus