WILL WE EVER LEARN?

We know about all the mistakes made in Iraq but little attention is given to Afghanistan., where we've been fighting longer. The new Australian Defense Minister gives us the truth:


Australian defense chief warns allies over Afghanistan war
updated 3:27 a.m. EST, Mon December 17, 2007

(CNN) -- Australia's new defense minister warned U.S. and NATO allies over the weekend that they risk losing the war in Afghanistan without a sharp shift in military and reconstruction efforts there...

Joel Fitzgibbon ... told the allies during a weekend conference in Scotland that more work needs to be done to win the "hearts and minds" of the people of Afghanistan in the 6-year-old war against the country's former Taliban rulers and their al Qaeda allies.

While the U.S.-led coalition has been "stomping on lots of ants, we have not been dealing with the ants' nest," Fitzgibbon said.

Fitzgibbon told his fellow defense ministers -- including U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates -- that "We need much more than a military response" to a rise in attacks by the Taliban.

"We are winning the battles and not the war, in my view," Fitzgibbon told the newspaper. "We have been very successful in clearing areas of the Taliban, but it's having no real strategic effect."