Who are we fighting, and what is the objective?
I do not believe either question has been answered.
“We have always been at war with Oceania.”
re: “what is the objective?”
That is the question that I don’t see an answer to anymore.
When we orginially went into Afghanistan it appeared to me that it was to
a) destroy the Taliban or at least greatly reduce it’s capability to carry out attacks against the United States, b) if possible, attempt to stabilize Afghanistan’s government to be able to take on the Taliban on their own, c) demonstrate to other nations who harbor/support terrorist groups whose goal is to kill Americans that they will get their butts kicked, and
d) get Osama bin Laden if practical.
I felt like, at least initially, that we were making some progress on all fronts - that is until Obama came into office. He did get bin Laden (maybe), but other than that, what has our mission in Afghanistan become? I can’t tell - can you? We still make attacks on the Taliban, but it just seems like Obama is content to have our troops just try to keep the status quo rather than finish the job and get out.
It seems that our relationship with their government and with the locals has deterioated back to what it was prior to our going in - I just do not see a clear mission anymore.