> within weeks had significantly degraded Taliban/Al Qaeda's fighting ability I'm not sure whether it was genuinely degraded (eg, Taliban controlled areas givi

> within weeks had significantly degraded Taliban/Al Qaeda's fighting ability I'm not sure whether it was genuinely degraded (eg, Taliban controlled areas giving up their weaponry and not permitting new stocks) or temporarily interrupted (cash buying a temporary cessation in attacks). I wasn't there so I can't comment but from 15000 miles away Afghanistan looked a lot like Vietnam to me. Maybe not in the Westmoreland mode of body count, but in the failed attempts to win hearts and minds as a counterinsurgency tactic and the difficulty of crossing a cultural chasm in order to do so (and failing). Plus the propping up of local potential leaders that really had no national legitimacy and doomed attempts to localize the war (aka what Nixon once called Vietnamization). I'm not saying I could have done any better. Afghanistan was and remains a fiendishly unwelcoming place.